


Death to the Details

by StarsInMyDamnEyes



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Asshole sorcerers, BAMF Jaskier | Dandelion, Cliffhangers, Competent Jaskier | Dandelion, Did I say Jaskier managed to hold his tongue?? I lied, Erland of Larvik - Freeform, Everyone is aromantic asexual unless specified otherwise :P, Feral Jaskier | Dandelion, Gen, Gen Fic, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Being an Idiot, Gore, Jaskier manages to hold his tongue for once, Jaskier may have abandoned his past but his past sure as hell hasn’t abandoned him, Jaskier speaks elder because fuck yeah bilingual characters, Jaskier | Dandelion Has a Past, Kaer Seren, Minor Character Death, Monsters, No Romance, Non-Human Jaskier | Dandelion, P L O T it’s official we have plot, School of the Griffin, Tags to be added as work updates as I do not wish to inflict disappointment upon any readers, There’s a random Ferrant in the character tags don’t mind him, Torture, Unreliable Narrator, Witcher Jaskier | Dandelion, Witcher Lore I Just Made Up, Witcher Trials, Witchers Have Feelings (The Witcher), accidental lute acquisition, apparently he’s too irrelevant to have a character tag lol rip, bc of course they do even canon agrees, because if canon’s doing.... that.... then i can damn well do whatever this is, extreme annoyance is still a feeling Geralt!!!, gratuitous foolishness, he doesn’t admit it but it’s true, i forgot to tag a bunch of things whoops!!, i haven’t gotten round to actually doing his arc yet but he is present, i swear by my creed of no romo, kind of, non-linear timeline, one does not simply forget one’s witcher upbringing now that they have a neat lute, some beta we die like jaskier (emotionally), some people get murdered on-screen, you can pry the Jaskier-Coën friendship from my cold dead hands
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:16:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 80,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23364571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarsInMyDamnEyes/pseuds/StarsInMyDamnEyes
Summary: Jaskier had quickly abandoned the Path once he was out in the world. He’d chosen a name, and pursued what he truly wanted in life - and it was music, not fighting monsters, because of course it was - and he’d only deigned to act as a witcher until he gathered the not insignificant amount of coin needed to buy himself not only a glamour but the discretion of its creator, which had cost almost as much as the damn thing itself.If anyone who’d ever known him could see him now, he doubted they’d be too surprised.Jaskier is a witcher by nature, a bard by choice, and a general nuisance by sheer force of personality.
Relationships: Coën & Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 550
Kudos: 1100





	1. The Self-Imposed Humble Beginnings of Jaskier’s Bardic Career

**Author's Note:**

> Non-Human Jaskier is the hill that I will die on. Come kill me :D
> 
> Also you should absolutely give [All The World I’ve Seen Before Me Passing By](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23052019?page=8&show_comments=true&view_full_work=true) by brothebro a read if you haven’t already done so because they did it better (is this shameless, unprompted promo of another person’s fic? yes, but it inspired this one so i think it’s warranted)
> 
> Also I apologise deeply for the belated addition of the link, it turns out that it was just basic html all along and i _actually knew how to do it the whole time_ :D
> 
> Furthermore, I went back and actually wrote the title fucking correctly bc apparently I can't fucking read, god
> 
> Also you’d think that my having to go back and manually re-add all the italics every time would curb my abuse of them, but alas, you’d be wrong

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaskier had prepared for many eventualities in his new, chosen life as a bard, but one thing he did not prepare for was running into Geralt of fucking Rivia in a shitty tavern in Posada. Even less did he plan on finding himself trying to befriend the man.

The fact that a disproportionate amount of the boys who undertook the witcher trials were killed during them was not an obscure one, by any means - the statistic, too, was quoted as three out of ten boys surviving often enough to be somewhat common knowledge to those who cared enough to actually bring up the topic. It was too bad that most people simply didn’t; perhaps, Jaskier thought idly, if they did, they’d have a tad more respect for the witchers everybody loved to scorn.

Or perhaps - and this was more than a little likely - Jaskier was just a tad bit biased on the matter.

Either way, the three to seven ratio was something he’d known before he’d known most things, as well as the specifics involved with the little fact - such as it was the Trial of the Grasses that killed most of these, as the vast majority did not take too well to the mutations that were used to make one a witcher in the first place.

See, everyone had expected Jaskier to end up as one of the seven rather than the three throughout his younger years, and nobody had been particularly shy about saying it. Why would they? Jaskier himself had accepted it as a fact long before he’d even actually had to do anything. He’d been soft, emotional, and altogether not someone who would fare too well in situation involving extreme violence... or any kind of violence, really. Not to mention, he’d been so scrawny and weak that the general consensus had been that he’d drop dead the moment anyone tried to induce any kind of mutation in him, so it didn’t really matter all that much anyways.

Nobody was more surprised than Jaskier himself when he emerged on the other side, soft and emotional and very much alive. His expectations he’d had for himself had very much been subverted - he’d thought that, on the very slim chance that he did manage to survive the trials, he’d come out of them cold and harsh, his childish idealism tempered by the cruel realities of his world, as well as the supposed suppression of emotions that he’d been told would occur along the way.

Either he was a tad stronger than he’d thought himself to be, or merely far stupider, and Jaskier had no idea which it was.

Regardless of which it was, though, he had quickly abandoned the Path once he was out in the world. He’d chosen a name, and pursued what he truly wanted in life - and it was music, not fighting monsters, because of _course_ it was - and he’d only deigned to act as a witcher until he gathered the not insignificant amount of coin needed to buy himself not only a glamour but the discretion of its creator, which had cost almost as much as the damn thing itself.

If anyone who’d ever known him could see him now - and Jaskier wasn’t entirely sure why he hadn’t, in fact, ended up crossing paths with another witcher, since it wasn’t as if he’d been avoiding them, and given that he’d _very specifically ensured_ that his glamour would also cover his scent to avoid any identification by that route, they shouldn’t have been avoiding him either - if anyone who’d ever known him could see him know, he doubted they’d be too surprised.

Miffed, sure, maybe a bit amused, but definitely not surprised.

As to how well life as a travelling bard was treating him, though - well. If the cry of _abort yourself_ that Jaskier currently found being hurled at him was any indication, he was as much unsuited to it as he was to wandering around hunting monsters. Sure, he wasn’t _bad_ , by any means, but for some reason - and Jaskier suspected the stone-cold witcher upbringing - he just didn’t have that instinct for what would really click with his audience. At least, he hoped that was it.

Ordinarily he would have called it a day and moved on to the next town, but something, or rather some _one_ , had caught his eye.

There was a witcher in the tavern.

Another one. A witcher that was not, in fact, currently making an utter fool of himself under a glamour with a lute, in front of a crowd that was providing him with his next meal via heckling.

This witcher also seemed like a very grumpy one, who didn’t seem like he’d appreciate a stranger waltzing up to him and striking up a casual conversation.

Still, Jaskier’s bleeding heart reasoned, he looked so _lonely_.

The rational part of him, the one that agreed that trying to make friends with _Geralt of fucking Rivia_ , because of course that’s who someone with Jaskier’s luck would run into, out of a misplaced sense of pity and compassion, was a stupid idea, was loudly overshadowed by the dominant, idiot part of him that seemed to love to make terrible decisions on a regular basis.

So naturally, Jaskier found himself loitering in front of the witcher, with absolutely no idea what to say to the damn man.

“I love the way you just... sit in the corner and brood.”

“I’m here to drink alone.”

Ah. Well, that hadn’t worked at _all_. Attempt two, then.

“Everyone else here has had some kind of review for me, except for... Well, you,” and that was a terrible way to strike up a conversation, well done Jaskier, but he needed some kind of excuse to talk to the man. “So, come on! Three words or less. Don’t want to keep a man with... bread in his pants waiting.”

Geralt of fucking Rivia regarded him for a moment - and that moment was just long enough to make Jaskier wonder uncomfortably if he’d just put himself on the Butcher of Blaviken’s personal shit list - before apparently deciding to humour him.

“They don’t exist.”

“What don’t exist?”

In hindsight, _three words or less_ was a terrible stipulation.

“The creatures in your song,” the other witcher elaborated gruffly.

Of course they didn’t exist! Jaskier wasn’t stupid, he knew damn well the kinds of things one could expect to find lurking in the wilderness, but there was this little thing called _artistic license_ , wherein he could elaborate certain aspects of a story to achieve a greater impact...

He bit his tongue. The last thing he wanted to end up doing was _patronising_ the man.

“And how would you know?” he asked instead.

If Jaskier had been slightly drunker, he’d have sworn that that was incredulity he saw in the witcher’s eyes.

“Oh, fun,” he said instead, slowly, hoping that his acting skills passed muster and he didn’t come off as suspicious... which was unlikely, if one were to be realistic about it. “White hair, big old loner, two _very_ , very scary-looking swords... You’re the witcher! Geralt of Rivia!”

The Geralt of Rivia himself, however, had gotten up and started to walk away, clearly done with the bard that had decided to graciously interrupt his _brooding_. Jaskier merely got up and followed him.

“Called it!”

He hadn’t really called anything, but it felt like a cool thing to say at the time.

Of course, the man kept ignoring him, but Jaskier found himself comfortably ignoring his ignoring. He had seemed lonely, at first, and now Jaskier wasn’t surprised at to why - Geralt of fucking Rivia seemed like a poster child for every single stereotype of witchers that had ever been conceived.

That did not mean he was allowed to continue being lonely and miserable, though.

Not on Jaskier’s watch.

He decided at that moment, then, that Geralt’s business was to be his business, until the man learnt to lighten up a little. Possibly longer than that. In fact, hopefully longer than that. Jaskier was the type to get rather easily attached, and he did rather feel like Geralt would be the kind of person he’d enjoy the company of - regardless of how much of a nuisance he found the bard to be.

He loitered around a few steps behind Geralt, so as to only seem vaguely stalker-ish rather than overtly so, whilst the man took a contract from a villager to hunt down a devil that had been stealing grain.

Now, Jaskier may have been a pretty shit witcher, but even he was reasonably certain that devils did not exist.

Whatever it was, though, it would make a damn interesting fight to watch - Geralt of Rivia, the strongest of the witchers, could be relied upon to deliver a good show, after all. Unlike the bard currently trailing him, he was actually suited to a life of monster-fighting, and was damn good at it. Perhaps Jaskier could even get a song or two out of it? A real-life battle that he could actually bear witness to seemed like much better subject material than... Well, the stuff that got him pelted with bread and told to _abort himself_.

Okay, fine, Jaskier was willing to concede that he had a teeny-tiny, incy-wincy, minuscule little ulterior motive in deciding to attach himself to Geralt.

Not that that was his sole motive! He did, after all, stand by the opinion that the man was in desperate need of a friend.

He just... happened to also stand by the opinion that having a figure such as Geralt of Rivia as a muse for his songs would be great for his career. And really, Geralt should be pleased at this, given the hit that his reputation had taken after Blaviken, even if it was partially his fault for committing mass-murder in the middle of the town. That was generally an action that should be avoided. Jaskier himself had never committed mass-murder, but even he knew that that was something that should generally be done away from the eyes of the public.

The bard snapped out of his contemplation once Geralt began to move away from the local, quick to embark on the quest which he had been tasked with.

“So... A devil, huh?”

Geralt didn’t acknowledge Jaskier’s presence, but that was fine. They had time, after all, and there was nothing quite like a near-death experience to bring people together. No need to rush.

“I don’t suppose you need a hand, at all? Because I have two. One for each of the... uh... _devil’s_ horns.”

This time, he did get a response, in the form of a grunted dismissal. “Go away.”

“I won’t be but silent back-up,” Jaskier promised, quite truthfully - if he did deign to intervene in any way, it would most certainly be in a manner that Geralt could not play witness to. He’d spent too much time and effort and coin procuring the glamour he wore to blow his cover just because a situation got minorly inconvenient.

Geralt again chose to utilise his apparently favoured tactic of ignoring his brand new travelling companion.

That was fine. Jaskier could speak plenty enough for two people. “Look, I did give your criticism some thought, you know, and I realised that real adventures would indeed make much better subject matter for songs, and you, good sir, smell like you are absolutely chock-full of them. Adventures, I mean. Amongst other things. I mean, what is that? Is that onion? It doesn’t matter. Whatever it is, you smell of death, and destiny... Heroics, and heartbreak...”

“It’s onion,” the witcher interrupted gruffly, not even sparing Jaskier a passing glance.

Ouch. Now that... That was a proper dismissal. Was that better or worse than the ignoring?

“Right. Right, yeah,” Jaskier continued, pretending that he hadn’t taken the hint for what it was. “Ooh, I could be your barker! Travelling along with you, singing the heroic tales of the mighty Geralt of Rivia, the Butcher of Blaviken!”

Geralt and, by extension, his horse stopped in their tracks. The witcher turned slowly to face Jaskier, who had his moment of realisation a tad too late for it to really mean anything.

Crap. He shouldn’t have said that. He should not have said that. Jaskier of all people should have known better, that was clearly not a kind title, of course he would resent its use-

“Come here,” Geralt grunted, and Jaskier did, ignoring his instinct to not do that, and instead start running as fast as he could in the opposite direction - how quickly he’d allowed all his competence in battle to shrivel up and die, if that was his first impulse in this situation - placing himself at the Witcher’s mercy.

“Yeah?”

Jaskier had no idea how much Geralt had held back on the gut-punch he delivered, if he’d held back at all, but it had Jaskier doubled over and doing his best not to fall to the floor despite the stronger physique he had under the glamour, winded to boot.

Yeah, he’d fucked up a little bit there.

Still, he filed the incident away for further contemplation. Apparently even Geralt of Rivia, the most witcher-y witcher out there had feelings too - and Jaskier had managed to hurt them within, what? Less that half an hour of knowing the man?

“Come on, Roach.”

So he could talk to his horse, but not to Jaskier?

Well, he’d have plenty of time to coax conversation from the man, provided he managed to stick around long enough. Preferably without unwittingly delivering a mortal blow to the man’s pride.

Jaskier righted his lute on his back, and set off to catch up with the man who had just sucker-punched him in the gut.

He was, he thought to himself, truly a master of good life choices.


	2. The Trial of the Grasses, and Other, Slightly Less Horrific Things at Kaer Seren

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaskier’s witcher trials, at Kaer Seren, were not a pleasant memory whatsoever. Far too much pain and blood for that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for graphic descriptions of torture in this chapter - it is about the witcher trials, after all, and they aren’t too pretty. It starts pretty much right after Erland is introduced.
> 
> I did not want to spend so long detailing Jaskier’s witcher trials but here we fucking are I guess
> 
> It’s so weird mentally referring to him as Julian rip
> 
> I basically live on the witcher wikia right now, like what am i gonna do? Read the books? Play the game? I think the fuck not

“Coën,” Julian mumbled, half-asleep, and he heard a soft noise of affirmation from his friend. “Coën, do you think it’ll hurt?”

“Probably,” Coën said, an edge to his voice, filled with an emotion that Julian couldn’t quite place. “I mean, it changes your entire body. Mutates it a lot. It can’t _not_ hurt.”

“Mm.”

“Are you scared?”

Julian, at that moment, just wanted to scream at his friend, and cry, and yell that of course he was scared, he was going to die, and it was going to be soon, and, thanks to this whole goddamn witcher thing that nobody in their right mind would think Julian had any chance of surviving, he was going to die in unimaginable pain. Of course he was. It was like the whole concept of witchers themselves was built around the goal of causing as much drawn-out pain as possible.

But Julian was too tired, or too... something, he supposed, to actually do any of that. Instead, he just let himself slump against his friend’s shoulder.

Coën, after a second’s hesitation, leant his own head atop Julian’s.

“Are you scared you’re going to die?”

Julian let out a weak snort of laughter. “No, Coën, I’m scared that I’ll live to see another fucking day. Of course I’m scared because I’m going to die.”

He could hear his friend’s frown in his voice, as the older boy tried to console him. “It’s not a sure thing that you’re going to die, Julian. You have the same odds as any other one of us.”

The shake of his head was minute, but, leaning against each other as they were, Coën must have felt it. “No. Everyone else is stronger.”

“Why? Because they decided to pick up the battle-hardened warrior act at eight fucking years old? Give me a break, Julek, I thought you were smarter than that.”

 _Julek_. He hadn’t been called that in years, not since-

“I meant physically.”

That made Coën snort in amusement. “The hell did they pull that from, then? You’re all kids. None of you are going to have the musculature of a grown man. Especially not you lot, you’re not even eight.”

“You’re kind of a kid, too, Coën.”

“Compared to you little ones, I might as well be an adult.”

It was true that there was somewhat of an age gap between Coën and the rest of the trainees - Julian was barely seven, and he was by no means the youngest, whereas Coën was somewhere around his twelfth year of life. It had been a little odd to Julian at first that he should be present - the general witcher consensus was that the younger the boys were, the better, since then less time and effort was wasted training boys who did not survive the mutations, the Trial of the Grasses - and, they’d told him, only three out of ten of them did - but if Coën, who’d shown up one day at Kaer Seren a few weeks before Julian himself was left there, was deemed to be adequate witcher material, then he was adequate witcher material.

Still, to call Coën an adult was a stretch.

“Why’d you come here?” Julian asked instead, voice small.

“I had to,” Coën said, vaguely. “I doubt anyone’s here because they want to be. Except maybe Andras.”

“Andras is a dick,” Julian slurred, before launching into a childish and unflattering impression of their peer. “Look at me, I’m Andras, I’m so much better than everyone else, because I ran away from home to be a witcher because I’m so fucking stupid!”

“Fucking stupid is right,” Coën smirked, giving Julian a faint poke. “Don’t listen to any of the crap he spouts. I’m fairly certain he’s told everyone they’re going to die at some point.”

“He’s told me most, though. And everyone agreed.”

“Because you’re a sane, normal person. And they don’t know how to handle that.”

“Sure,” said Julian, and Coën never failed to be surprised by how much sarcasm such a young kid could inject into his voice.

“Besides, you’re not the only one they fling shit at. They go after everyone, including each other.”

“Even you?”

“Even me,” Coën snorted, but Julian was fairly certain that most of Coën’s reassurances were only meant to make Julian feel better. Even if anyone did throw jabs at the older boy, he knew how to handle them, unlike Julian. “I swear, if Andras is the one who dies, we’ll all be celebrating.”

Dying.

Right.

The Trial of the Grasses was looming in front of them, and Julian was going to die.

Oh, fuck, Julian was going to fucking die.

He was going to die, and precious few people were going to care. Hell, maybe the only person who’d actually give a damn that he ever existed was Coën. He was going to die, and he was going to die alone and forgotten and not really having done any of the things he’d wanted to do with his life.

He remembered being four, almost five, in a grand house that was far more warm and welcoming than Kaer Seren, excited about the lute that one of his tutors had shown him, and played to him, seemingly delighted that the aloof and fanciful child he was charged with had deigned to pay attention to him for once. He remembered begging his mother to let him learn.

He remembered never thinking that anything bad could ever happen to him, remembered his mother kissing his cheek goodbye for the last time, cradling his newborn baby brother.

He remembered the journey.

He remembered not really getting it until he arrived at Kaer Seren.

He got it now, though.

“Julian,” Coën said, breaking the silence. “I don’t know who’s going to die and who isn’t. But if you die and I don’t, I promise I’ll remember you.”

“Name all of your horses after me,” Julian demanded, suddenly a lot more confident. “If I die, you have to name every single one of your horses Julian Alfred Pankratz.”

Coën laughed. “You don’t need to die for me to do that, Julian. That’s a great idea. I’ll name all of my horses Julian Alfred Pankratz anyways, and then I’ll have to put up with the fact that you’re competing over the spot of ‘Favourite Julian’ with my horse.”

“Hey!”

Julian’s voice, though indignant, was tinged with amusement. Coën smiled. They simply sat in silence for a while after that, as the moon climbed higher in a sky Coën could barely make out, what with the small window that let light into the musty little room - the room that was most notably not their dorm - being at the very edge of his peripheral vision.

“I’ll have you know,” Julian murmured, though his eyes were closed and voice sleepy, “that I will always be the better Julian.”

When they woke the next day, as the sun was climbing into the sky, they were still leaning against each other, albeit now both sporting terrible aches in their necks from their unorthodox sleeping positions.

When Julian was taken to the room later that day, he tried to be glad that what was probably his last night was at least spent with Coën. He hadn’t meant to fall asleep, in all honesty - he’d meant to live every second of the night and treasure it, before the agony that he knew awaited him in the morning.

Erland of Larvik, the grandmaster of the School of the Griffin, watched as they prepared for Julian’s trial... for Julian’s death. Coën had sworn that the old witcher had a soft spot for Julian, which Julian had considered - after all, Erland probably knew of his noble heritage, and it was widely accepted that he held chivalry in high esteem, and that was a concept Julian had already been familiar with. He probably liked Julian’s education, and Julian’s articulate speech, and Julian’s background, rather than Julian himself.

The boy could make out no hint of sorrow behind the man’s eyes as he watched him, the his young heart thumping loudly and fast in his chest. Why would there be any? He had watched countless boys suffer this fate. Julian was not special.

“Sit,” Erland commanded, gesturing towards the bench... or was it a pallet? Regardless, it was long, wide, and wooden, and Julian took a seat.

He wanted, desperately, with all his being, to ask what was going to happen. To ask how he was going to die. But try as he might, Julian’s dry throat couldn’t get the words out.

“You have questions,” Erland stated, and Julian tried to agree, but his throat still wasn’t cooperating.

Instead, he nodded his head and bowed, hoping that Erland wouldn’t take his silence for contempt.

“You will be given potions,” the witcher told the boy, and Julian liked to imagine that there was a softness in the man’s tone that was surely just a product of his own desperate, wishful thinking. “Multiple potions, over the course of several days. These potions will induce the mutations that make a witcher, a witcher. Your metabolism, your flesh, the whole of your body... All will be altered in the process. The side effects will be extremely unpleasant, as you well know. You are to drink this potion, and you will remain on the pallet. Do you understand?”

Julian, heart racing faster and louder than it ever had before, nodded thickly.

Erland held out a vial to Julian, and the boy took it. It was thick, and clear in colour.

He held it before his eyes, blinking away tears. What if he smashed the potion and ran? What if he refused to drink it? What if he-

If he didn’t drink the potion, he’d be alone in a world where he had nowhere to go, not anymore.

Kaer Seren was where he belonged now. And in Kaer Seren, he was expected to drink the potion.

Julian closed his eyes, letting the tears fall, and downed the potion in four gulps.

At first, nothing happened.

He opened his eyes.

Saw Erland.

And then

Julian felt the pounding in his head first of all, fading from nothing to excrutiating pain within the span of a few seconds, spikes of pain intensifying as if it were a horse, galloping towards-

And then it was _unbearable_ , and his hands were clutching his head, and he couldn’t see Erland anymore, though he was sure his eyes were open. He pressed his fingers, his uncomfortably warm fingers, to his forehead, because it felt like his head was being rent in half, as if his brains were about to explode and come bubbling out of his forehead if he didn’t hold it in. He couldn’t see where he was, he could barely feel - he heard his body making contact with the wooden pallet but all he could focus on was how his head was going to burst, he was going to die, he was going to die-

And he felt something warm in his throat, something harsh and coppery and _warm_ , and barely he heard is own hacking cough as something warm and thick and wet splattered over his chin, he couldn’t feel anything other than the tearing, boiling onslaught raging in his skull.

He heard it again, that raw, rasping burst of air and blood trying to escape his throat, which felt raw and rough like that time he skinned his arm but it wasn’t his arm, it was his throat, and the pain barely registered in his mind because it was to busy _burning_ , he was _burning_ , he was coming undone from the inside out in a maelstrom of searing agony.

Julian was dying.

Julian _wished_ he was dying.

He was so stupid, he thought, before the thought was burnt up, burnt up or melted by the assault that his mind had become. Did he really want to live? Had he really wanted to feel the blistering barrage of pain spreading across his body like a river, like a plague?

What was he doing? Could he move? Could he feel anything beyond the scalding _pain_ that he’d become?

There was liquid in his throat. There was liquid in his throat, why was it going the wrong way? It was cold and welcoming and it was met by a tumult of warm copper coming from the other direction, and it was gone, and Julian was engulfed in flame, he couldn’t see, or hear, or feel, or think, and he wasn’t

He couldn’t

He was so-

He was _gone_.

* * *

When Julian came to, his head - his head was pounding, it was pounding, but it wasn’t burning. His body felt limp, and weak, and exhausted, but the ache was nothing compared to the flames that he’d been a second ago.

The flames that had engulfed him.

He couldn’t move, but he could feel. His breath rattled in his throat, but he could _feel_ it. It was over. He was tired, gods, he was tired, but it was over.

It was over, and his mouth tasted of the bland soup Coën was always telling him to finish up instead of copper.

“You’ve done well,” he heard Erland’s voice say. “You’ve done well, Julian.”

He simply lay there for a while, exhausted and burnt up. He felt his muscles twitch, glad to be free of the pain, and then he heard Erland say _drink this_ , but his heart wasn’t pounding, it was, too slow, something was wrong, but his arm reached out anyways, and he felt the viscous liquid pour down his throat, and he didn’t want to _burn_ again, but it wasn’t his head or his body that shattered into a thousand pieces, it was his _eyes_.

The pain wasn’t a maelstrom of fire this time, it was sharp and tangible, and it was like daggers were being pushed into his eyes. Was he going blind? Oh, fuck, was he going blind? His hands, warm and sticky with something, reached up, unbidden, clawing at his face, trying the get the daggers, get the blades, get them _out_ , but then his hands were pulled back by something cold, someone cold, they were holding him back, but his _eyes_ , his eyes were being cut, they were being cut out of his head and he couldn’t stop it-

Julian heard his own scream, high and thick and pained, tearing itself from his throat. He needed to _stop_ it, he needed to _stop the daggers from pushing into his skull_ , he needed his hands free, fuck, but then he felt something in his throat, it was the cold, it was _water_ , he was being given water, and he choked it down as best he could, he tried not to scream, he was trying not to scream, but his _eyes_ , damn it!

The next time the pain abated, and the blades in his eyes turned into itches, like the itches he’d get if he stayed outside in the spring too long, back in the gardens in Lettenhove, he was lucid.

He let out a weak noise that could have been anything, but definitely meant exhaustion and pain, and he felt a cool hand on his shoulder.

“Julian,” came Erland’s voice. Was that his hand on Julian’s shoulder?

“I-” Julian coughed.

“You did well, Julian,” Erland said, and Julian was fairly certain that it wasn’t just his imagination this time - there was a hint of softness to his voice.

“I- I just-” Julian managed weakly. “I- Food.”

A gruff chuckle greeted his ears, and a dizziness engulfed him as Erland helped him upright. “Julian. Focus. Focus on my voice, and do not open your eyes, yet. I’m going to feed you, now.”

Julian was internally a tiny bit mortified that he was currently being _spoon-fed_ by Erland of Larvik himself, but gratefully swallowed the soup that the grandmaster witcher offered him.

He didn’t much care, anymore, that the soup tasted like dust and parchment.

He gulped it down greedily.

Julian felt Erland leave, assumedly once the soup was finished, and he leaned back against the wall.

His heart felt wrong.

It had been racing when he first entered the room, he know, pounding like the world was going to end, but now, he could barely feel it. The soft sound of his own heartbeat seemed so... sparse. So slow. So strange.

Julian cracked open his eyes.

He realised his mistake immediately when he was assaulted by a rendering of the world around him in overwhelming clarity.

A scream tore itself, inadvertently, from his throat. The light was too much, fuck, it was too bright, and it made Julian’s head _ache_ as it tore its way through his eyes and into his skull. It _hurt_ , damn it, it hurt so much, it was like his entire field of vision had been taken up by the fucking sun, and it... it _burned_.

Oh, fucking shit, it _burned_.

By the time Julian had managed to stop screaming, and by the time he had adjusted enough so that he could see without causing himself excruciating pain, he was greeted with the image of Erland in front of him, the ghost of a smile on the witcher’s face.

“I did tell you not to open your eyes,” he chided, tone softer than Julian had ever heard it.

“I’m sorry,” Julian mumbled, voice hoarse from screaming.

Now that he could actually see, Julian could make out his surroundings reasonably well.

The musty, barren room wasn’t, as he’d first assumed, bathed in daylight - it was night, and yet he could make everything out in more clarity and detail than he’d previously been able to in the brightest of daylight. What had happened to his eyes? Was this why Erland’s were yellow?

He looked down, catching sight of his more immediate surroundings. His pallet was covered in dark, sticky stains of what Julian could only assume was his blood, and, upon closer inspection, his hands, and torso, and most likely his face too, were similarly bloodstained. There was something else, vomit, perhaps, splattered everywhere, too.

It must have been from when he was burning.

There were a thousand things he wanted to ask, as he looked up, shaking, and met Erland’s eyes, but he could only stammer unintelligible syllables.

Erland chuckled. “I assume you have many questions.”

“I-” Julian sucked in a long breath. “Yeah. Yes. I- What’s happened to me?”

“The potions have been successful, Julian. The mutations have taken hold, and you have completed the Trial of the Grasses.”

“There’s more,” Julian said flatly. “More trials after this one.”

“Yes, there are more trials,” Erland conceded. “But I doubt that there is any chance at all of you dying given that you’ve gotten this far. The remaining mutations are, comparatively minor, and the Trials of the Mountains is more like a physical examination than anything else. The ones you’ve had are the most severe.”

Wait.

“Was it only two potions, then?”

“Oh, no,” Erland said. “I suppose you wouldn’t much recall the worst of it. After a certain point, it does tend to simply blur together.”

Julian hadn’t given it much though beforehand, but he now realised that Erland, too, must have gone through the same Trial a long, long time ago.

“My heart,” Julian muttered instead. “It’s... wrong.”

“A witcher’s heart beats four times more slowly than a man’s does. It just means that the trial worked.”

“And... my eyes.”

Erland winced. “Ah, well, that was my mistake.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ordinarily, the night vision would be part of the Trial of the Dreams, but...”

“You’re old and decrepit and mixed up the potions?” Julian grinned cheekily, earning himself a swat from Erland, which set off a ringing pain in his head. “Sorry.”

Erland sighed. “It was something to that effect, yes.”

Julian giggled.

“Congratulations, Julian. You’ve completed the Trial of the Grasses.”

“What about Coën?”

“Do I look like I can be in multiple places at once? I’ve been busy tending to you, Coën hasn’t had his trials yet.”

“Can I see him?”

“If you can stand.”

It turned out that Julian could not, in fact, stand, his limbs still too weak from the pain to properly support him, but it didn’t matter anyways in the end. The familiar, raven-haired figure of his best friend appeared in the doorway and launched himself at Julian despite the blood, shit and vomit, tackling him in a hug and eliciting a yelp of pain in response. The older boy immediately pulled back in a flurry of curses and apologies, which Julian could only grin at.

“You survived after all,” Coën said, and Julian could see his smile even in the dark. “And Andras really was full of shit. I don’t want to say _I told you so_ , Julian, but-”

“You told me so,” Julian smirked, and gingerly pulled Coën into a hug.

Julian had finally managed to get up and drag himself to get washed a day and a half or two after the trial, and the only thing that managed to coax him out of the bath, in the end, was Coën informing him that the next trial taking place was Andras’.

At this, he had, of course, donned clean clothes and, with Coën by his side, made his way to where Andras lay, covered in his own blood and phlegm, and vomit and shit.

Andras’ breath was wheezing, rattling around in his throat like there simply wasn’t enough of it to fill up the space despite the blood oozing out. He was trembling, weak from the fits and convulsions that had plagued him, and Julian looked down at the boy with yellow eyes that held no sympathy.

”J- Ju-”

Whether it was weakness or the lack of air that caused Andras to be unable to finish the word, Julian didn’t know. Instead, he took his clammy hand in his own, looking for all the world as a friend comforting another in his dying moments.

”I won’t miss you,” Julian said softly, “I won’t even think about you. No one will.”

And Andras went limp.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> According to the wikia, the night vision comes with the trial of the dreams and not the grasses, whoops, so now it’s Erland who did a fuckup and not me
> 
> I found no canon timeline for Coën so GUESS THE FUCK WHAT he and Jask are best buds, you cannot and may not change my mind.
> 
> I just want Jaskier to have good friends okay I’m-
> 
> Also the most intense pain the author has ever felt is getting hit in the head by a football when I was 7 so if I’m doing this wrong then THAT’S WHY AND I’M VERY SORRY
> 
> I also have no idea who the fuck Erland is except for the School of the Griffin’s equivalent of Vesemir, so I basically pulled this out of thin air but at this point haven’t I already beaten canon to death with a stick?
> 
> //i added a paragraph break. On the one hand it flows better now but on the other... i broke my rule of No Breaks in DttD whoops :(


	3. An Encounter of Elves, Expediency, and a Great Deal of Stubbornness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaskier and Geralt end up captured and at the mercy of Filavandrel and the elves. Jaskier is not particularly amused.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Behold!! My longest chapter to date, almost doubling the length of this fic, featuring Jaskier being Done, and also being 98% filler. I would have liked to gloss over the whole thing, but it’s quite important in canon, and it would have been a bit of a massive jump given that last chapter was not particularly chronological.
> 
> Despite this being my longest chapter, it’s also the one I’m least proud of, so please bear with me. I swear I have more interesting things to write!!
> 
> the scene is like 7 minutes long in canon what the fuck am i doing and WHY??

Jaskier sat, hands tied to those of Geralt of _fucking_ Rivia, back-to-back with the man in the middle of a damn cavern, bound too tightly and inconveniently to stage any kind of grand escape. It had seemed like a simple enough job - a sylvan was stealing grain, so they would stop it stealing grain.

There.

Easy.

At least, it had been a perfectly simple and smoothly-handled situation right up until they had figured _why_ the sylvan had been stealing grain, after which one thing led to another, and here they were, bound together on a cavern floor, at the mercy of whoever the sylvan was in cahoots with. Jaskier was also fairly certain that he could recall shouting, loudly, something about the sylvan’s mother fucking a goat. Or had that been Geralt? Jaskier couldn’t possibly have said.

This was all going brilliantly.

Geralt was grunting and struggling against the bonds behind him, something that Jaskier wasn’t even going to try. He did not, by any stretch, feel like sacrificing his wrists to the witcher’s escape attempt, no thank you. He needed them unbroken and unmarried by rope burns to play the lute, after all.

Still, Jaskier knew, the air of frustration around the other man was almost tangible. Who knew that it was so easy to get the famed witcher so wound up?

“This is the part where we escape,” he whispered lowly, doing his best to throw a glance at the other witcher, and failing. Mainly due to the back-to-back position in which they were bound, but definitely not helped by Geralt’s _squirming_.

“This is the part where they kill us!” Geralt hissed, and Jaskier briskly reconsidered his prior estimate of how much of a roar could be effectively conveyed by a whisper.

“Who’s they?”

The question was swiftly answered, not by Geralt, but by the elf who delivered a swift and painful kick to the side of Jaskier’s head, accompanied by something in Elder that he couldn’t quite make out thanks to the sudden burst of pain that overtook his head at the behest of his attacker’s boot.

“Elves,” Geralt grunted, a tad too late for his explanation to be warranted, because Jaskier had eyes too, but he didn’t dwell on that - he couldn’t dwell on that, not when the discordant twanging of familiar strings so dreadfully tore his attention away from Geralt and to whatever was being done to his poor, innocent instrument.

“Oi, that’s my lute, give that back!” Jaskier cried, catching the attention of precisely nobody. Geralt grunted as he, too, caught their attacker’s boot on his person. “Geralt! Quick, do your... your witcher-ing-”

“Shut up!”

“No-”

At that point, the elf currently kicking the shit out of them decided to join the conversation, barking at them to either shut up, or... hold a table? Really, Jask? Erland would be so disappointed him him if he ever found out that _that_ mistake had even crossed Jaskier’s mind. It was so simple that it was embarrassing.

“My Elder speech is rough, I only got part of that,” Jaskier groaned, making a mental note to brush up on his language skills. _Surely_ he hadn’t gotten so rusty over a few simple years of disuse?

“Humans,” the elf snapped, glaring at them with the intensity of a thousand suns, “ _shut up_.”

“ **Ah, got it, thank you so much,** ” Jaskier replied, switching to Elder himself, and letting a generous amount of sarcasm trickle into his voice.

The elf, apparently, was not impressed, given the response Jaskier had apparently elicited.

“Do you want to die right now?”

“As opposed to _later_?” Geralt growled, a note of incredulity tainting his tone.

Jaskier noticed what was about to happen this time a tad faster than last time. Oh god, she was going for-

“No, please not the lute-!”

Still, the bard was cut off by the impact of the elf’s blow and the twanging of strings from his instrument as her conspirator decided that he’d rather see it as lumps of wood and string rather than anything remotely playable. _Fuck_. These elves... they really were vindictive bastards, weren’t they? Aside from physical damage, they had also now decided that it was apparently a fantastic idea to start dealing _emotional_ damage, too. That was brilliant. Absolutely wonderful. Jaskier was about two seconds away from cursing her with every single colourful word he’d ever heard Coën utter, and a few more. That was _his_ damn lute!

“Leave off!” Geralt roared. “He’s just a bard.”

Jaskier was not, in fact, just a bard, by any stretch, but he appreciated the sentiment.

Besides, was that Geralt of Rivia, showing concern for his wellbeing? Jaskier was touched. Truly. And in a much nicer way than when Geralt had sunk his fist into his gut on the road.

Somewhat less fortunately, their elven captor did not appear to share this sentiment. Nor did the one who was apparently _rhythmically timing the destruction of Jaskier’s lute to match the blows struck by his friend_ , the absolute fucking _dick_.

“You don’t deserve the air you breathe! Everything you touch, you destroy!”

That was a bit rich, given that it was set to the background tune of Jaskier’s lute’s slow journey from an instrument to a pile of scrap.

A voice entered his head, unbidden. _They went to hide in their golden palaces_ \- fucking Lettenhove. His fucking tutor from fucking Lettenhove. Of course that would pop up now, right at the most inconvenient of times. Perhaps Jaskier should ask the violent elf to kick him, with exceptional vigour, in the head, so that he might forget all the damn lies he’d languished in at _that_ place altogether.

What with the state of this hovel and, perhaps, the fact that they were living off of grain stolen from Posada by a sylvan, Jaskier found the whole _golden palaces_ rhetoric that his tutor had fed him in his very early youth to be rather difficult to swallow. Not that he hadn’t smelt a rat far earlier. He definitely had. He wasn’t a _fool_.

He hadn’t. In his defence, though, he’d been a tad too busy to ponder the veracity of claims a long-forgotten man had made to him in his very early childhood, and the ubiquitous acceptance of the myth gave him little incentive to ponder it, omnipresent as it was.

Oops.

Still, he wasn’t about the let the elves just wander around _breaking people’s lutes_. That was just excessively rude.

“Oh, we destroy everything we touch?” Jaskier chuckled, somewhat manic. “Who’s smashing up my lute again, then?”

“The world is much larger,” snarled the elf, “than your damn _lute_.”

Jaskier received another kick for that one, but it was hardly the worst thing he could have said.

Not that that wasn’t somewhat of a bare minimum standard to set, but still. He, at least, wasn’t the one kidnapping innocent people - or witchers, rather - and engaging in the wanton destruction of their property.

That was also a very rude thing to do, by Jaskier’s standards.

Even ruder was the fact that they were now focusing on beating the ever-loving crap out of Geralt, who had done even less to offend the elves than Jaskier himself, to the point where he could smell the familiar coppery tang of blood in the air, and, judging from the more subtle facets of its scent, it was definitely Geralt’s.

“Still!” Jaskier found himself roaring. “Does the size of the world excuse your cowardice? You hide behind your thieving sylvan scapegoat, and you beat a bound man, too scared to even look him in the eye?”

At this, the elf’s tone softened, becoming almost dangerously quiet. “That’s it, then? We steal from the innocent to thrive in our _golden palaces_ , torturing our poor victims on a whim? Tell me, do you like my palace?” She moved to crouch in front of Geralt, not Jaskier, and moved out of Jaskier’s peripheral vision completely, leaving him with no expressions to match to her soft, bitter voice. “Does it live up to the tales you humans tell, then?”

A crunch, and a yelp. Given the shifting movement of the man he was tied to that accompanied the sound, Jaskier was inclined to assume that Geralt had headbutted the elf the moment she had made the mistake of approaching him. The bard twisted, attempting to confirm his suspicions. Indeed, the elf was reeling back from a blow.

Jaskier smirked.

“Take that, pointy,” he called, delighting a little too much in something he had played little to no actual part in. Still, she had it coming. It wasn’t typically a gesture of goodwill, after all, to wail on restrained captives.

His smugness soured and bled away, however, when she didn’t get up. In fact, concern started welling up in him when she started _coughing_ , of all things - had Geralt broken her rib and punctured a lung with a _headbutt_ , of all things?

“Wait, what’s- what’s wrong with her?” Jaskier asked, trying his best and most damndest _not_ to sound concerned for the woman who had just beaten the shit out of them and, even to his own ears, failing abysmally.

“She’s sick,” hissed another voice.

“Oh, and who’s this, then?” Jaskier groaned, at the unfamiliar figure who entered alongside the sylvan, the grain thief.

“He’s Filavandrel. King of the Elves.”

“Not a king,” Filavandrel corrected. “Not by choice.”

Right. Well. That was a bit of an awkward declaration to respond to, at any rate, especially for Jaskier given the fact that he’d just hurled a fair few insults at his kind. And, given Geralt’s prior demonstrations of the full extent of his verbosity, Jaskier didn’t doubt that he would, indeed end up being the one doing all the talking.

“You were stealing for them,” Geralt realised... only now? That was rather slow of the man.

“I felt for them,” the sylvan retorted. “They were forced out of Dol Blathanna.”

“But they chose-” Jaskier began, but he was cut off before he could finish. That was going to make him look rather bad, then, given that he couldn’t in fact provide context, now, for what exactly it was that they chose.

“Do you know anyone that would choose to leave their home? To starve? To have a sylvan steal for them?” Filavandrel hissed. Jaskier wanted to bite back and say _of course not_ , fuck, he couldn’t even bring himself to try and leave Kaer Seren even when he thought he was going to die... But then, it wasn’t like he could just admit that.

“Toruviel,” he continued, ignoring Jaskier completely after his rebuttal - in a manner not conductive to any kind of conversation at all - and turned to face the elf who’d beat them up. “No one was supposed to get hurt.”

“What’s two humans in the ground when countless elves have died?” Toruviel snarled.

“ _One_ human,” Geralt corrected, snarling, and it was somewhat amusing to Jaskier, the confidence with which they were _both_ wrong. There were no humans among them. “And you can let him go.”

Had Toruviel hit Geralt a little too hard in the head? Why was he being so- Oh. He likely just wanted to be rid of his newfound, unwanted companion. At least he cared enough to want Jaskier to leave him alive rather than as a corpse.

He could work with this.

“Then Posada will that learn we’ve been stealing,” Filavandrel countered, as if Jaskier was some sort of common snitch, incapable of keeping his mouth shut. In hindsight, Jaskier had not done much to counter that assumption, but still. He did have _some_ sense honour. Erland had made sure of that. “The humans will attack. Many will die... On both sides.”

Hadn’t Filavandrel himself just undermined Jaskier’s motivation for grassing the elves up to Posada’s residents? Or did he simply think humanity was cruel enough to disregard casualties on their own side to ensure the deaths of their opponents?

Unbidden, Jaskier’s thoughts drifted off to a man with a thick, brown beard and steely blue eyes and answered his own question. _Some of them probably were_.

“The lesser evil,” Geralt grunted, his shifting posture indicating that he was raising his head to look up.

That was... entirely not the right thing to say in the given situation.

“No matter what you choose, you’ll come out bloody, and hating yourself,” he continued, and Jaskier wanted to scream. “Trust me.”

There was a better solution here! One that involved no dying whatsoever! The solution wherein they all worked out a cordial agreement and left each other alone, in peace! Was everyone here so stubbornly entrenched in their own bloody worldviews that they couldn’t simply come to a civil accord? And why was Jaskier feeling like the reasonable one in this situation?

“That’s the problem,” Filavandrel said, lowering his voice as he, too, crouched in front of Geralt. “I can’t. This is necessary.”

Well, if Filavandrel wanted to pay for his trust issues with Jaskier’s and Geralt’s blood, more power to him. Jaskier wasn’t about to dig himself into an even deeper hole, respect-wise, in front of the man. Besides, if an elf came to close to his head with a weapon, he could always fall back on his esteemed tactic of using the benefits of his witcher trials and years of training to run the fuck away.

So, the bard held his tongue.

“I understand,” Geralt said, leaving Jaskier hoping against all hope that he wasn’t about to let Filavandrel off him over some _grain_. “As long as _you_ understand that it won’t be long before you follow me in death.”

Fucking _shit_. He _was_. He _was_ about to let someone kill him over _grain_ , as if they couldn’t simply strike a mutually beneficial bargain that involved Geralt lying about having dealt with the sylvan and Filavandrel taking his posse somewhere with arable land.

At this point, Jaskier felt like he must have missed something, or oversimplified too far, because there was no way that two such respectable men would lead themselves so far down the path of stupidity guided only by stubbornness. This wasn’t even _caution_. Caution, paranoia even, Jaskier could understand. This was sheer, unadulterated idiocy, and, had Jaskier himself not also been at risk of feeling its very permanent effects, he would have laughed out loud at the sheer ridiculousness of it all.

“Yes, because they pushed us from viable soil. Even chaos is polluted,” Filavandrel said. “Synthetically enhanced so that even humans can make magic.”

Okay, Jaskier did feel a little bad for him then. It was, after all, his family and his ancestors that had done the pushing. Maybe Geralt’s, too, but Jaskier’s had almost certainly been involved. They were nobles, after all. They wouldn’t have kept that status without a tiny bit of elf genocide. Not that Jaskier was surprised.

Too, it was a tad bit ironic that Filavandrel would preach to a _witcher_ about synthetic enhancement.

“Chaos is the same as it always was,” Geralt countered, reminding his companion just how _done_ he was with this whole damn conversation. “The humans just adapted better.”

“You say adapt, and I say destroy.”

At this point, Jaskier had begun to zone out a little.

“You are choosing to starve,” rumbled the witcher, and _finally_ , something Jaskier could agree with. Still, he tried not to let it show on his face. It would look preposterously bad for him, as a human, to do so, given the history of unkindness the elves had suffered under them, and that was putting it mildly. “You’re cutting off your ear to spite your face.”

“You think this is about pride?” Filavandrel snapped.

 _Yeah, a little bit_. Jaskier might have said it out loud if he actually wanted to die. Sure, he felt bad for the man and his people, but there were so many other things he could have done in this situation to resolve his problems. Like simply moving to a settlement with arable land. Apparently, though, the elves had a fatal struggle with the concept of adapting.

Filavandrel wasn’t finished. “My elders worked with humans, and got robbed of all they had, and when they fought back, they were slaughtered. _The Great Cleansing_ , humans call it. I called it digging a mass grave for everyone I loved. And now the humans watch these very fields grow, our infants fertiliser for their grain. I don’t wish to bury anyone else.”

The bitterness and anger and _pain_ in the elf king’s voice was palpable, and Jaskier could understand Filavandrel’s stance a little bit more. That kind of thing... It could well be expected to leave a man with long-lasting scars.

That did not mean that Filavandrel’s handling of his current situation, however, was by any means, good.

It was very... not good, in fact. It was absolutely abysmal.

He opened his mouth, and closed it. It was not his place to speak.

“I was once Filavandrel of the Silver Towers,” he whispered. “Now I’m Filavandrel of the Edge of the World.”

In a strange way, Jaskier could relate. He, albeit barely, could recall how it felt to be forced from comfort, to be forced from one’s home- though not to the extent that Filavandrel probably could.

He was glad, in a way, he hadn’t voiced his thoughts about Filavandrel’s competence. The man didn’t deserve to hear it from someone wearing human skin.

“If I bring my people down from these mountains, it would mean bowing to human sovereignty. They’ll make slaved of us, pariahs of half blood children!”

“Then go somewhere else,” Geralt said, with directness and surety, his words the only thing stopping Jaskier from blurting the same thing at the apparently severely myopic elf king. “Rebuild. Get strong again. Show the humans that they are more than what they fear you to be.”

“Like you, Witcher?”

“I have learnt to live with them,” and was that a smile Jaskier heard in Geralt’s rough voice? “So that I may live.”

 _Amateur_ , Jaskier thought idly.

Toruviel stood, suddenly, brushing off the sylvan. “Please, my king. There are others. A new generation.”

Wasn’t that a change of heart? If only she’d had it before deigning to beat a pair of bound men. Even so, Jaskier was in no way about to complain.

She continued. “Evellien who wish to fight! Let us take back what is ours. Starting now.”

Oh, right. Of course that was what swayed her. Never mind, then.

Still, it was none of Jaskier’s business what her reasoning or actions were, here on out, unless that reasoning was still to kill the two witchers in front of her that had been so rudely taken hostage. In that case, her reasoning and actions were absolutely, completely, and utterly Jaskier’s business, thank you very much.

Filavandrel drew his dagger.

_Oh, shit._

The hapless bard had really thought that the situation had taken a different turn.

“Wait!”

The sylvan was the one to halt Filavandrel’s hand, and Jaskier mentally apologised for the goat-fucking remark. That had been rude of them.

It had been true, of course, and very witty, even if he did say so himself, but the fact remained that it was also rather poor form given that the sylvan was now the only thing standing between Jaskier and his imminent execution via sulky elf king.

“Torque, stand aside!” Filavandrel roughly shoved the sylvan - Torque - away from him.

“The witcher could have killed me,” Torque said, a note of pleading in his voice, “but he didn’t. He’s different. Like us.”

The sylvan only received another shove for his trouble, but Jaskier felt gratitude swelling up in his chest anyways. Granted, he was advocating for Geralt’s survival rather than the bard’s, but Geralt did seem to be rather fond of Jaskier’s not being dead, for some reason, so he decided not to take it too personally. Gift horse, and all that.

“If you must kill me,” Geralt rumbled, “I am ready.”

Wait. No. The witcher had veered off in the exact wrong direction. Wasn’t the whole point of this conversation to convince Filavandrel not to off the pair of them for the heinous crimes of humanity which - and this was true - had been committed by individuals who were not, in fact, Geralt and Jaskier?

Geralt continued, unfazed. “But the sylvan’s right. Don’t call me human.”

If that was the hill that Geralt of fucking Rivia was ready to die on, Jaskier was going to scream.

Filavandrel moved, slowly, circling the bound pair like a predator would its prey. Brilliant. Perfect. Wonderful. Was he going to kill both of them, or just Jaskier? Was that why he was circling around towards them?

Jaskier tensed, ready to dodge, to run, but it was the _rope_ that took the force from the blade’s strike rather than any part of Jaskier’s body.

Oh, thank bloody fuck.

“You’re not going to kill us. That’s- that’s nice.”

Apparently he’d taken a lesson or two in articulation from Geralt.

“I stand by what I said,” Filavandrel uttered. “I don’t want to bury anyone else.”

“Right. Well, uh, thanks, then,” Jaskier stammered in reply.

The chink of coins interrupted the very awkward moment, and Jaskier turned to see Geralt shove the coin he’d been given at Filavandrel, eliciting a reaction of poorly concealed surprise from the man.

“Take it,” he grunted. “It’s the coin for getting rid of the sylvan.”

Wordlessly, Filavandrel did, and Jaskier debated whether or not it was a good idea to ask if he - if _they_ , rather - were allowed to leave.

“Thank you,” the king said.

Jaskier, meanwhile, had bigger problems.

His lute, his _livelihood_ and one of his most prized possessions, lay in pieces on the floor. As he turned over the splintered pieces in his hand, all hope that the damage was reparable immediately faded from his mind. With a grimace, he realised that he wouldn’t even be able to purchase a replacement, poor as he was.

He was keeping his _bread_ in his _pants_ , for crying out loud. Jaskier was not a man of many resources.

“ **Goodbye, my dear lute, which I am sadly far too broke to replace,** ” Jaskier muttered, in unpracticed Elder, hopefully loud enough for Toruviel to hear. “ **I do hope that I manage to find an alternate livelihood before I starve to death.** ”

A scoff from the elf in question assured Jaskier that she did, in fact, hear his complaints.

“Jaskier,” Geralt said, and oh, look at that, the man had bothered to make note of his name! Jaskier was touched, truly. “Let’s go.”

“Wait.”

The interruption had come from Filavandrel himself, causing both men to turn back.

“ **You speak Elder, bard?** ”

His eyebrows were quirked upwards in surprise - was fluency in the language a rare occurrence, then? Of course it was. Who would need it, other than the elves themselves, a few witchers, and the odd pretentious noble?

“ **Somewhat,** ” Jaskier replied briefly. “ **I’m relatively educated.** ”

“ **Indeed. I don’t suppose it would have to do with-** ”

“ **My amazing intellect?** ” the bard interrupted, before Filavandrel could say _glamour_ and send his entire life to shit on the off-chance that Geralt turned out to _also_ be fluent in Elder - and, given the way his day had gone thus far, it would not surprise him in the slightest. “ **My father valued knowledge. He taught us many things that I considered useless at the time.** ”

“ **So it seems.** ” Filavandrel pursed his lips. “ **Take my lute, then, bard. I have no desire to cause someone’s needless suffering.** ”

Wait. What?

Was he actually, genuinely, offering his own lute to Jaskier? To keep? That... did not make sense. By all rights, Filavandrel should want to hang on to his instrument, a relic of his culture as it was.

Apparently, Jaskier’s face still showed his emotions as if it were a book to be read, because Filavandrel gave him a small, half-smile, and offered him the instrument.

“ **Take it, and use it well,** ” the king bade him.

An idea was already forming in Jaskier’s mind. It was not a particularly nice one, by any means, but it would be effective, and kill two birds with one stone - save Geralt’s reputation from the whole... _whatever_ that had happened at Blaviken, and remove all suspicion that Filavandrel and his people were hiding out anywhere in the land. It would be rather mean, of course, especially given that it was with Filavandrel’s own lute that he would bring his plan to fruition, but Jaskier was no stranger to expediency.

“ **I will,** ” Jaskier promised, a glint of something not quite mischief in his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HOW did i manage to stretch this scene out so far??
> 
> I imagine Erland would be a perfectionistic kind of teacher, who wants to make sure that anything he can do, his students can also do. Now would be a great time to mention, though, that I’ve never read the books, or played the video games, so I’m making a lot of things up.
> 
> BUT canon has already died and been forgotten here so I DO WHAT I WANT >:D
> 
> Anyways next chapter we are back to Small Jaskier and Small Coën because I love them and also I like regular, predictable patterns :D
> 
> ASDFGHSFGS I SURPASSED 10K WORDS IN 3 CHAPTERS W H A T THE ACTUAL FUCK???


	4. The Ill-Advised Nature of Inattention in Combat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Julian and Coën were, after the Trial of the Grasses, still undergoing witcher training. Obviously. What else would they be doing?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay firstly. FIRSTLY, and most importantly, I would like to take this occasion to wish an exuberantly happy birthday to a most dear friend of mine, the illustrious Zezzy, known to me by many nicknames of varying degrees of flattery that I am kind enough not to disclose. I’d also like to take this moment to thank her both for putting up with my texting her various ideas for this fic in all caps at ungodly hours in the morning, and also for the fantastic memes she has created pertaining to it that I will treasure forevermore.
> 
> SECONDLY this chapter managed to be OVER 6,000 WORDS, which is somehow bloody longer than half the existing part of the fic.
> 
> Enjoy!!
> 
> We’re back to small Jaskier and Coën this chapter - it’s alternate chapters :D

Kaer Seren was, for the first time in Julian’s memory, quiet.

The silence that had settled over the keep like a thick smog was unfamiliar, and, despite the freeing lack of judgement and jeers that Julian really should have learnt how to ignore long ago, the changed atmosphere that permeated his home was _wrong_ , somehow.

No. Not somehow. He knew exactly how it was wrong.

The keep felt dead, with only the three of them. Julian knew he should have been overjoyed - he’d survived, and so had Coën, after all, like he’d barely dared daydreamed before the Trial of the Grasses - but he couldn’t dislodge the twisting feeling in his gut that told him that something was missing, something was _gone_.

The halls were too big, too immense, too empty, and the dorm he and Coën had so often snuck out of for privacy seemed so dead and hollow with but two occupants that sleeping in there just didn’t sit right with them.

In his head, Julian knew that the cull at the Trial of the Grasses was severe. He knew, he _knew_ , damn it, that it was three out of ten. He’d heard the statistic being thrown around, by boys his age and younger, almost on the daily, and he _knew_ that had meant that after the trials had come and gone, only two or three of them would be there to remember it. Still, despite that, despite _everything_ , Julian couldn’t help but feel like some part of Kaer Seren had died, too.

It was like all the life had been sucked out from the inside, leaving only a hollow husk being, a shell of his old home that was just _off_ enough to not really feel like home at all. Sure, there were the older witchers, those who had already passed the trials, but aside from during the winter, they were seldom present, and the only ones Julian and Coën really interacted with at any rate were those who taught and trained them.

Lessons had intensified, now that Erland and Old Keldar were free to focus their energy on mentoring two witchers instead of eight - although Julian had a sneaking suspicion that the only reason that there had been eight of them to begin with is the older witchers _knew_ that they only wanted one, two at the most - and Julian found himself and Coën always being busy, always having something to, up to their ears and drowning in training exercises and ingredient lists and extensive notes on how to defeat whatever monster they happened to be focusing on that week, not to mention all the extra things that their mentors had them learning that Julian _knew_ weren’t part of the witcher training.

And yet, perfection was expected from them anyways, regardless of what they were actually doing. Whether it be a physical exercise or something Julian had to learn off by heart and recite back to his mentor, he and Coën were expected to accomplish whatever it was with the utmost competence.

Furthermore, Julian had a sneaking suspicion that the grandmaster witcher’s illustrious standards for the bare minimum proficiency in any given task had been surreptitiously raised after the Trial of the Grasses had left him with only Julian and Coën.

“He’s a slave-driver,” Julian grumbled to his friend one evening, body aching from a day spent occupied with strenuous activities that even his fancy, sort-of witcher muscles protested vehemently against. “Erland of Larvik is a fucking slave-driver.”

“That he is,” Coën murmured, collapsing on the floor of the room - their room, where they’d spent their last night before Julian had faced his first trial. It was, for the most part, the only part of Kaer Seren where the silence was not as deafening, having always been meant as a quiet refuge, away from the eyes of the other boys and their antics, so the effects of the sudden emptiness were muted somewhat. “Still, I suppose it’s better that we have harsh training now and go out there prepared than the other way round. I’d much rather be told by Erland that my sword skills aren’t up to par than a kikimora that’s tearing me limb from limb.”

“I know,” Julian said, his puppy-eyed expression somewhat sabotaged by the eerie yellow colouring of his eyes. “But you don’t have to preach at me about it. That’s Erland’s job.”

Coën snorted. “And if he were half good at it, I wouldn’t do it, but here we are.”

“He can probably hear you,” Julian smirked. “He’s probably thinking up a really horrible circuit for tomorrow as retribution.”

“Eh. It’s a big keep, Julek. I’ll take my chances,” the older boy shrugged, but Julian knew him well enough to be able to tell that the nonchalance was feigned. It most likely hadn’t occurred to him that the older witcher was not as forthcoming with privacy as he seemed.

“Sure. Unrelated, you’re trembling because it’s so cold,” he said, playfully flicking Coën’s arm.

“I’m not trembling! I’m merely... I’m generating heat,” Coën finished lamely. “Kaer Seren is cold as all shit in the winter.”

“It’s not winter, yet, though,” Julian pouted, but tackled his friend in a hug anyways.

Coën, surprised by the sudden attack, stiffened on instinct as he felt wiry arms wrap themselves around his torso.

“Hey, hey, what are you doing, Julek?”

The older boy’s voice was soft, no hint of accusation or annoyance, and after a second’s hesitation, he, too, wrapped his arms around his friend. Julian snuggled further into the embrace, making himself comfortable.

“You said you’re generating heat, and if that’s true, it’s only fair that you share.”

Coën snorted. “You could just say that you want a hug.”

“I could.”

They sat there for a while, Coën running his fingers through Julian’s long brown hair, which the younger boy adamantly refused to cut, citing that it would piss his father off to know that his son was sporting such a bird’s nest on his head.

It had grown so much since the Trial of the Grasses. Had it really been so long already?

“Are you going to work alone?”

“Hm?” Coën’s reply was somewhat absent, unfocused.

“As a witcher,” Julian clarified. “Erland said that witchers worked alone.”

“I don’t know. Why, do you want to be a witcher duo, then, Julian? We’d scare all the locals shitless, I don’t doubt. Just imagine, you’re minding your own business as a hapless local, and not one, but _two_ overly menacing witchers stride into the town. They’d go crazy. _Why are there two of them?_ ” he imitated a high-pitched, terrified voice, though the quality of the impression was somewhat lessened by the grin he was sporting, “ _I didn’t even know that they travelled in pairs!_ It would be quite funny, actually, if it didn’t mean we’d get paid half as much.”

“Mm,” Julian hummed, noncommittal, as if he really didn’t care that much anyways. “But we’ll stay friends, though, right?”

“Obviously,” Coën snorted. “You don’t need to spend all your time with someone to be their friend, as long as you care about them.”

“I know.”

“Sure you do. You just need reminding, sometimes, you clingy little bastard.”

“You take that back,” Julian threatened, sounding as menacing as one possibly can whilst having their hair stroked, snuggled against their friend’s chest.

“Not on your life,” Coën grinned.

“Take it back, or...”

Julian trailed off, racking his brains for a threat.

He came up empty. As trainee witchers, the two of them had precious little belongings, and such precious little to threaten each other with, and there was only so far one could go with unflattering future horse names... especially once it was remembered that, if a threat of such a nature was carried out, the general public would end up bearing witness to a witcher calling his horse _Coën but Taller and with Better Hair_. Not exactly the image one wanted to have when one also wanted to get paid to fight monsters.

Unless...

“Take it back,” Julian smirked, “Or I’ll dull your blades on _purpose_.”

Coën gasped in exaggerated outrage, recoiling at the affront. “You wouldn’t _dare_ , Julian.”

They younger boy’s grin was wicked. “I _would_.”

“Coën, Julian,” came a voice from the doorway, and both boys froze.

Erland of Larvik stared down at them, face steely and unyielding as ever, with _something_ in his eyes that Julian couldn’t quite place, but was entirely sure was a bad sign regardless.

“If you have time to plan such daring exploits,” the older witcher said, tone indecipherable, “then I place my complete confidence in your ability to complete a few... nighttime training endeavours, shall we say? Take your swords and equipment, and come with me.”

Neither of them were willing to say anything, but Julian was sure that his expression matched the one Coën sported, with a thousand undeclared curses written all over his face.

Still, if Erland said that they were going to train, then they were going to train. The base rule of Kaer Seren, or rather the School of the Griffin, in fact, was that Erland’s word was to be treated as law.

Scrambling to their feet and falling into line behind Erland in quiet tandem, the two trainees followed the man outside, where the first snows of the season had already fallen.

“I’d have done this later,” Erland said, tone deceptively conversational, “but Keldar is returning from his excursion earlier than expected.”

Julian held in a hiss. Coën, he knew, was fond of the old witcher, but Julian... It would be something of an understatement to say that Julian was not. Old Keldar taught them monster knowledge, and was a very wise and learned man, with little patience or tolerance for stupidity and inattention.

It was only natural that Julian would harbour an intense mutual dislike towards the man, after all, flighty and scatterbrained as he was.

That, and he reminded him a little of his father and tutors back in Lettenhove, who’d spout the same rhetoric about politics and family trees and history that Keldar did regarding monsters and creatures he would be expected to slay.

Namely, he was of the well-voiced opinion that Julian was an incompetent idiot who would surely not amount to anything if he did not severely reform his act. Not that the boy didn’t give as good as he got - his verbal battles with the man, as Coën, too, would admit despite his rather straight-laced approach to his lessons, were a sight to behold. Julian, thanks in part to his noble upbringing that he so wrinkled his nose at, was an exceptionally verbose boy, and the insults he exchanged with his teacher only grew more creative as time went on.

Coën swore up and down that Julian had managed to elicit a small bit of grudging respect from the man.

Julian didn’t believe him.

“We’ve arrived,” Erland said, interrupting they boy’s musings. “Tonight’s exercise will be practical. I will leave you here for the night, and return for you in the morning. I expect for you both to have at least fought _something_ by sunrise. Am I understood?”

As the boys declared affirmative responses, they exchanged a relieved glance between themselves. As Erland’s _endeavours_ went, this one was fairly tame.

The catch was, of course, that only one of them possessed night vision.

“He didn’t say we couldn’t fight together,” Julian mumbled under his breath, as Erland’s figure began to retreat.

“I do recommend that you fight separately on one occasion, for your own sakes,” Erland called back, not even bothering to look back, and Julian winced. Damn that witcher hearing.

“So, according to Julian logic, he could probably hear me from fuck knows where back in Kaer Seren, but he clearly wouldn’t pick up on you mumbling something before he’s gotten twelve steps away,” Coën grinned, flashing his teeth as he smiled at his friend.

Julian scowled. “Shut up.”

They decided to stick together, for the first part, whilst they took stock of their surroundings. There was that saying, after all - something about only fools rushing in where wiser men fearing to tread. Perhaps it wasn’t entirely applicable to the given situation, but the underlying sentiment of the benefits of exercising caution could still be appreciated.

Coën took the front - he was taller, stronger, and altogether the best equipped to handle a direct attack - and Julian, smaller, more agile, and much more capable of actually seeing what lurked in their surroundings, took the rear, casting his eye around in the hopes of picking up danger in a wider range, that he could see and Coën could not.

The folly of ingraining habits in a fight, or indeed any situation that involved the wilderness, had been reiterated to the trainees more than most anything else, by Erland and Keldar, too, on some occasions, though he had ceased to utter such phrases after Julian’s tendency to argue with the man about absolutely anything had caused one too many arguments over the rote memorisation of monster types and methods of dispatching them technically counting as ingraining habits in a fight. Still, it was a lesson that both Coën and Julian had taken note of, so they agreed to split up once the hour was up, if circumstances were favourable.

“There!” Julian’s hiss was sudden, hand already flying to the hilt of his silver sword before he really even began giving Coën any real information. “A couple steps behind you, to your left.”

Coën, his own silver sword in his hand, turned towards the given direction.

“What is it?”

“I don’t know. It’s crouching.”

“Fuck, do you think I should stab it?”

“Doesn’t look like anything we shouldn’t stab,” Julian murmured, trying his hardest to keep his voice loud enough that Coën would hear it without alerting anything else.

Coën, sword unsheathed, approached the creature, whilst Julian moved away, keeping his back to him, alert. It wouldn’t to for the pair to be surprised from behind, focused on their current target as they were. It was generally accepted, not even simply among witchers, but at large, that when the opportunity was there, someone should always be watching one’s back.

The sound that Coën’s sword made as it came into contact with the monster was not the wet, squelching crunch that Julian expected. It seemed drier, and quieter, and in an instant, he realised why.

“It’s dead,” Coën whispered. “It’s a giant centipede, but it’s dead.”

“What’s one doing here, then?” Julian’s question, hissed into the night, came out sounding a little more frustrated than he meant it to. “I though they only lived in the Brokilon forests.”

“Ha! I knew you paid attention to Keldar,” Coën grinned, his smug pride audible in his voice.

“I do not,” Julian grumbled, affronted. “Come on. We do actually need to fight something properly, for Erland.”

“Right.”

Leaving the mysterious dead centipede behind, the moved forwards, keeping up their formation. Coën in the front, Julian in the back. Coën as the muscle, Julian as the lookout.

Casting his eyes around, Julian tried his best to catch sight of anything vaguely killable within his peripheral vision. The forest seemed eerily quiet, given that Erland had led them there specifically to fight. Julian almost wished that something big would come bowling out of the trees, ready to attack them - anything to alleviate the growing tension and fear pooling in his stomach.

He didn’t like this at _all_.

Peering in front of Coën, he tried to make out any sign of-

“Coën, stop, _now_ ,” Julian hissed, tugging on the back of his friend’s shirt.

Alert, as was expected of a witcher, Coën raised his sword before him, whilst simultaneously taking a step back as per Julian’s warning, squinting into the distance to try and make out what the younger boy had seen.

A large, slightly swaying, arm-shaped plant loomed in the shadows, some way away, but judging from the way Coën was squinting at it, he couldn’t make it out, distant as it was.

“It’s an echinops.”

“ _Fuck_ ,” Coën groaned. “Thanks for the heads up.”

Julian shrugged. “Wouldn’t want you to go out like a baby thanks to a _plant_ , poison spines or no.”

“I feel like a better statement here would be not wanting me to die _at all_.”

“Sure, sure. So, what are we going to do?” Julian frowned.

“Silver will take it out,” Coën said, almost absently. “Or incineration, but that’s not an option until we start learning the signs. The problem is that, even before could we get close enough to fight the giant plant, we’d be shot by poisoned spines.”

“Thank you for the run-down on how we’re going to die, oh Coën the walking library,” said Julian, voice heavy with sarcasm. “I feel so much better now that I know how we might have defeated the monster that will surely kill us had we been a bit more competent.”

Coën poked Julian’s side, and handed him his silver sword.

Julian opened his mouth, and closed it again. Out of the two of them, Coën had the better aim, edging Julian out on accuracy by a margin large enough to be counted as significant. Furthermore, he was stronger - his age and physique gave him an advantage in that area, meaning that he would also be the one most likely to be able to hurl the sword far enough to actually hit the echinops.

But Coën couldn’t see in the dark, unlike Julian. He had to make the throw by default.

And if he didn’t make it, one or both of them would be down a silver sword.

Julian’s greatest strength lay, somewhat unusually for a witcher, in agility and evasion, but even he wasn’t stupid enough to think that he could dodge projectiles moving faster than the eye could see.

“If we die,” Julian said, narrowing his eyes on his target. “If we die, it will probably be my fault, but you’re not allowed to say it.”

“No promises,” Coën grinned, patting Julian’s shoulder before swapping positions, Julian in the front, and Coën acting as lookout in the back.

Julian was by no means weak, even at his young age, thanks mainly to his witcher physiology, but also his rigorous training. His aim, too, could not be described as shoddy, but the fact remained that he was significantly less likely to successfully hit the echinops than Coën. He had a chance, sure. But it was not a good one.

Inhaling sharply before lobbing the sword, Julian put all his strength into his throw. The sword sailed neatly through the air, before hitting the echinops squarely in the stem... pommel-first.

 _Shit_.

“Did you hit it?” Coën yelped, barely finishing his sentence before Julian collided with him as he leapt backwards, to ensure that he was, without a doubt, outside the range of the echinops’ spines.

“Yes and no,” Julian scowled, picking himself up from atop his friend where they’d fallen. “I got it perfectly in the middle.”

“But?”

“It spun, and it landed pommel-first.”

Coën swore under his breath. “Do you think you can get it this time?”

“Hopefully.”

Julian stood in position, turning his body sideways this time, taking careful aim. If he wanted the sword not to spin, he’d have to throw it like a spear, but the grip required for that would reduce his strength.

Frustratingly, if he wanted the sword to reach, it had to spin.

However, if it spun _horizontally_ instead, it would be certain to cut through the plant if it hit at the epicentre of its spin.

Closing his eyes for a brief moment, Julian groaned to himself. If only he’d thought of that _before_ wasting a throw.

At least he knew where to aim, now. Small victories.

Stealing himself and inhaling sharply, he prepared to make the throw. If this didn’t work, they’d be down two silver swords, and in the best-case scenario, that would _only_ lead to them failing the exercise. It was too bad that the only living creature they’d happened to come across was so... difficult.

Putting all his strength behind the throw, Julian hurled the sword - Coën’s sword - at the echinops, eyes tracking in anxiously as it spun through the air and, _thank fuck_ , sliced almost straight through the stem of the plant. The sword had not, as Julian had hoped, hit the echinops at the centre of the movement where the force would be the greatest, but it had _worked_.

“I got it!”

“Nice! Can we grab our swords, then?”

“Yeah,” Julian said, already moving towards the dead plant, Coën shortly behind him.

The echinops was dead, its stem almost completely severed approximately at the halfway point between the roots and the eerie, almost hand-shaped bud at its apex. Picking up his sword from the ground and Coën’s from where it had struck the plant itself, Julian surveyed the plant for a second, before hacking the top off completely, albeit at a higher point, and slipping the dead echinops’ severed remains into his belt. It was annoyingly bulky, but he would be able to manage.

Besides, if it got in his way, he could always drop it at a later point in time.

Coën raised an eyebrow.

“What’s that for?”

“Proof.”

They set off again, into the mountainside forest, moving silently and swiftly, as befitting of one who did not wish to make a target of themselves. The echinops stem was cumbersome and awkward against Julian’s leg, but he adapted his movements to favour the burden, leaning slightly to redistribute his weight.

The milky moon that hung limply in the sky above the mountains surrounding Kaer Seren did little to illuminate the forest, and gloomy shadows clung to the undergrowth like a veil, dark enough that even Julian had begun to have trouble making things out in the undergrowth.

They split up, after a while, Coën deciding to stick to the more open areas where his poor night vision would not be such an advantage, and Julian doing the exact opposite.

Weaving his way through the trees, Julian tried his best to ignore the creeping numbness in his toes and instead focus completely on his surroundings. It was bitingly, achingly cold - the combination of largely untempered ocean winds blowing in from the sea, as well as the mountain chill, ensured that the area was bleak and chilly for a good portion of the year, and, with the winter approaching, the weather had only gotten worse.

Fucking Erland and his fucking _endeavours_.

Julian watched, and pressed forward, but constant vigilance was draining, and he hadn’t even gotten any sleep since the previous night, thanks to his slave-driver of a mentor. Still, he moved with swiftness and surety, despite the tendrils of fatigue tapping at his skull, despite the stinging chill of the air, despite the awkward weight of the echinops against his leg.

It occurred to him, then, that if the monsters weren’t going to stumble upon him, he should go looking for one, as foolish as that seemed to an outsider’s logic. Of _course_ that’s what they had to do - the witcher was generally the one who went looking for the monster, rather than the inverse.

Surveying the ground, Julian scanned his surroundings for anything that might suggest that something had recently passed through the area, and quickly happened upon something that indicated exactly that. A single, smudged paw print, large and seemingly fresh - _wolf_.

A wolf was not, indeed, a monster by conventional standards, but it was something to fight, and ultimately there had been no restrictions on what, specifically, they should face off against - and if that wasn’t a gleaming invitation for Julian to say _fuck it_ and run after the oversized dog, he didn’t know what was.

Tracking, of course, was an essential skill for any witcher, and Julian was well-versed in it, having been taught even before the trial that had culled all of his and Coën’s peers. Despite the meagre clues he had been left, he was soon following, with confidence, the path he was sure the wolf had taken a while earlier.

He could do this, easily. A wolf was one of the easier things to hunt he could have stumbled upon in the thick forests outside Kaer Seren, seldom traversed by any but the witchers of the keep or those who had business with them.

Julian didn’t falter in his pursuit, and that was his mistake - with a yelp, he barely caught himself before tripping down a sheer cliff, down a shallow gulley and right into the midst of a wolf and its sleeping pups.

He didn’t even have time to think of a curse before the adult of the pack had leapt up, and launched itself at him.

The opportunity did arise, however, for him to yell _something_ when the damn creature embedded its fangs into Julian’s shoulder.

“ _Fuck_!” Julian shrieked, scrabbling for his steel sword with his free hand, the one which was not currently at the mercy of an angry animal - his left. Of course the damn wolf had to go for his dominant arm. Of course it did.

When the wolf finally let him go, it was not thanks to Julian’s struggling and kicking, but rather, it seemed to have tired of the attack and let him free only to come back around for another pass at the boy.

Ignoring to the best of his ability the throbbing pain in his shoulder, from which blood was undoubtedly dribbling, Julian pulled his steel sword free from its scabbard and lifted it in his left hand as confidently as he dared. Despite the warnings of his mentor, Julian had not, in fact, ensured equal competence in skill with both his hands.

If he didn’t end up crawling back to Kaer Seren with one less arm than he’d left, he was going to take Erland’s stern advice a tad more seriously in the future.

Putting one foot forward in a mirror of a familiar stance, Julian raised his blade to meet the wolf that now charged him. Surely, this would be an easy kill. Surely, the wolf’s own momentum would bring it to be impaled on his sword, ending the encounter in Julian’s favour-

Surely, he wasn’t this unlucky.

The wolf, apparently having recognised the danger of a sword for what it was, struck low, teeth fastening around Julian’s calf, rather than attacking his torso. With an undignified scream, the boy went down, and all semblance of tactics and grace vanished from his movements.

 _Fuck_.

He was better than this. He was better than to be killed by a measly wolf.

Slashing blindly, his blade hit something hard, and he felt something warm splatter on his leg. Moments later, he felt the teeth gripping his leg let up, as the wolf let out a howl of agony. He’d hit it.

He brought his blade down, again, as the wolf tried its damndest to carve a chunk out of Julian’s leg in return. This time, he felt his arm hit the ground unimpeded, signalling that he’d missed his strike.

Undeterred, he moved again, a stabbing motion thrusting his weapon towards the animal. This was, of course, accompanied by a muted burst of pain from his injured shoulder, but Julian couldn’t bring himself to focus on it if he wanted to. The tell-tale grating squelch of a successful strike met his ears, and he pulled himself away from the wolf, freeing his legs as well as his sword, and righting himself as best he could.

Now that he was back in a more advantageous position, he could see the damage he had done to the wolf. He’d sliced the face, removing an eye, and stabbed through the throat from the side. Julian winced. Judging from the position of the wounds, it was a wonder he hadn’t carved through his own flesh as well as the wolf’s.

Was the animal alive, or dead? Julian rather thought alive, but it wouldn’t hurt to make sure. Readjusting his grip on his sword, he took a heavy step towards the wolf, and, with all his strength, brought the blade down on its skull.

Even if the slit throat hadn’t killed it, that surely would.

Julian choked in a breath, acutely aware that he was shaking. That had been too close for comfort. One mistake had given the wolf the upper hand, and that had almost cost him a fight that should, by all rights, have been easy.

Well, regardless, it was over. And the echinops remains were almost intact, to boot.

Sheathing his steel sword, sticky with blood as it was, Julian took out his silver sword - it would do to be prepared - and hoisted the dead wolf onto his shoulders as best he could. Given his stature, he ended up looping its front paws around his neck and wearing it as though it were some kind of cape, the blood oozing gently from its wounds staining his hair and clothes.

Hoping against hope that nothing else in the woods deigned to attack him, he began to make the trek back to the clearing Erland had left them in.

It was slow going, especially with the weight of the wolf and the echinops he was lugging with him as proof of his kills, not to mention the wounds to his leg where the wolf had bitten and scratched him. His worries of making it back too early faded - at this speed, he’d take far longer to make the journey than he usually would.

The adrenaline from the fight started to fade a little, and, annoyingly but not unexpectedly, the pain in his leg and his shoulder began to intensify. The wounds were by no means dangerously deep, but the wolf had been strong enough to break skin and sink its fangs some way into the muscle. Hopefully, the wounds were not deep enough to leave a lasting scar. Bite marks were so ungainly.

Julian walked, going step by arduous step, vaguely aware of the moon sinking in the sky. Why had he had to go so damn far off into the woods? The twisting pain plaguing his leg did not agree with the long trek ahead of him.

Still, he could make it. He could most definitely haul his two trophies back to Kaer Seren and then complain endlessly while he tended to his wounds. Wasn’t the clearing a significant detour from his current position, anyways? It would be far easier to just return directly to the old keep, rather than meet at the expected point.

Swallowing deeply, Julian changed his course. Coën was going to murder him for scaring him with such a stunt, but it was better than spending a few extra hours limping around on an injured leg with two very heavy accessories.

The path he took was steep, but, given the barren nature of the cliffs and rocky plains that surrounded it once he had cleared the forest, made up for what it lacked in accessibility and comfort, it more than made up for by making it nigh impossible for anyone or anything to sneak up on him. Using his sword as some kind of staff to assist his ascent, Julian found himself inching up the path, his open wounds burning thanks to the exertion of the climb, far slower than he would have liked.

He’d calculated that he’d arrive at Kaer Seren an hour or so before dawn, but the sun was already creeping over the horizon when he collapsed at the gates of his home. Emptiness and coldness be damned, Julian thought. He would never, ever take Kaer Seren for granted again.

Of course, he must look a right sight to anyone who saw him. Covered in blood, sweat and grime as he was, Julian was sure he resembled some unfortunate that had been abandoned there far more than he did a witcher, despite the circumstances.

His eyelids drooped, and his last thought before falling into sleep’s quiet embrace was something about wolf corpses as pillows, and then Julian was finally at rest, chest rising and falling with calm, muted breaths, curled up under the grand arch of Kaer Seren’s entrance.

In spite of the rather inadequate hospitality of his current position, it was nice. He hadn’t slept so restfully in a while.

It didn’t last, of course - a light sleeper, Julian was woken by the sound of approaching footfalls with an ache in his head and a sting in his shoulder and leg. Blinking the vestiges of sleep from his bleary eyes, he saw that the sun had risen out of the last few moments of dawn somewhat recently, and that two figures approached the great keep.

“It does seem that your worries ended up being unwarranted, Coën,” and that was Erland’s voice speaking - nobody could speak as clearly as the grandmaster witcher.

Coën was there, as expected, they were returning from the excursion after all, but there was something off about his expression. Something fragile, as if he were trying to hold himself together from the verge of breaking - but it melted away when he saw Julian sprawled on the floor before him.

He had barely pulled himself up into a seated position before Coën ran at him and tackled him in a hug, knocking Julian right back over again, and skidding a little.

“You’re a dick, Julian,” Coën whispered in his ear, clinging to the boy as if he would vanish if he didn’t hold on tight enough. “You’re such a fucking dick.”

“Hi, Coën,” Julian gasped, trying not to suffocate in his friend’s embrace.

“Never do that again, you stupid fucking _arsehole_ ,” Coën threatened, voice thick with emotion, and Julian felt something wet on his cheek as if brushed against him. “I thought you’d _died_ , for fuck’s sake. You never showed up at the clearing, we _waited_ for you, but you just... You never came, and we left _without you_ , you complete and utter pillock! Fuck, Julian, I thought you were dead.”

“My leg got bitten in a fight. This way was shorter.”

Julian’s strangled explanation was weak and ineffective, even to his own ears. He supposed it was true - it was rather a dick move of him to simply leave Coën waiting. He hadn’t thought of that, not at the time.

“Yeah, you idiot, I gathered.”

“I’m sorry,” Julian offered, sincere. “I didn’t mean for you to think that- that I was dead. I just went the other way. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Coën whispered, and his voice was so strangely small and broken that Julian found himself wondering who the reassurance was really meant for. “I get why you didn’t come back, but fuck, Julian, if you ever pull shit like that again, I’ll come kill you myself if my heart doesn’t give out on me first. You complete and utter douchebag.”

Julian hesitated for a moment, shoulder throbbing, but then decided to throw his arms around Coën anyways and return the hug, despite the twanging protests of his now much less fresh wound.

“I’ll try not to,” he said, and he _meant_ it - had Coën been the one to fail to show up at the clearing, Julian realised, he’d probably have skipped the stoic grieving and gone straight to manic howling, Erland’s presence be damned. “I killed a wolf, though.”

“I can see that.”

A brief moment of silence passed, and Coën pulled away from the embrace. Julian could see his expression change from overwhelming relief to something approaching dawning horror.

Oh.

“Julian,” the older boy said, yellow eyes narrowed in suspicion as well as concern. “How much of the blood is yours?”

Oh, shit. It was becoming increasingly likely that the lecture he feared wouldn’t be coming from Erland of Larvik after all, if Coën’s current expression was any indication.

“Ah,” Julian managed, weakly. “Not most of it?”

He looked pleadingly at his mentor as Coën began to fuss over him, acting for all the world as if he really were Julian’s older brother, but all Erland had to offer was the beginning - the merest _hint_ \- of a smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I HAVE NO IDEA HOW I MANAGED TO SAY SUCH FEW THINGS IN SO MANY WORDS
> 
> Also manually re-adding the formatting is a bitch. I had to do it _twice_ , because I missed a / ONCE, and that somehow fucked up 4,000+ words of formatting after it.
> 
> Next chapter is not, in fact, going to be picking up in canon again, but rather in the mysterious unseen time between Geralt and Jaskier’s first meeting and when Geralt dealt the Striga and the betrothal feast, because... come on, you all know how canon goes, and I have more things to say!!
> 
> Besides, if you haven’t twigged that my approach to everything is to make it as long and excrutiatingly drawn-out as possible... I’m gonna have to say it outright. Sorry :D


	5. Of Reiteration and Regret

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes a shitty deal really was just a shitty deal, entirely not worth the hassle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This certainly is a chapter that I’ve written.
> 
> Not gonna lie, it has some moments that I love, but altogether it feels kind of rushed and crap which is crazy because it’s (barely) 7k words, which is, once again, my longest yet. I remember when chapters used to be 2k words... oh sweet chapter 1, you feel like a lifetime ago.
> 
> Anyways, enjoy the chapter!! It certainly exists now

Jaskier _had_ had a horse, back before he’d decided to pursue a bardic career under a glamour that he was still not quite convinced was actually worth the staggering amount that he paid for it. Every witcher he knew of had a horse. Of course they did. When one was in the habit of travelling great distances, it only made sense to have a horse, unless one was particularly masochistic and _enjoyed_ carrying ungodly amounts of equipment and supplies on their back whilst traversing the continent.

However, as it stood, Jaskier currently did not have a horse, because what was a bard to do with a horse? It was far too expensive a creature to keep when one relied primarily on the goodwill of drunken crowds in taverns for income.

Geralt, the White Wolf of Rivia, the much nicer, upgraded nickname courtesy of Jaskier himself, _did_ have a horse. The horse was named Roach, which was admittedly a much better name than the one Jaskier had cursed his steed with back when he had one - _Lófasz_ had meant horse dick in some dialect or other that Jaskier had stumbled across in his travels, and really, it had been utterly hilarious at the time, even it was a nightmare to spell - and Geralt clearly cared for her, given the fact that Jaskier had, in fact, picked up on the fact that the witcher was far more willing to hold a conversation with Roach than with him.

Naturally, Jaskier was not allowed even to touch Roach.

Although he had ridden on horseback a significant amount of time whilst travelling as a witcher, the bard was no stranger to covering ground on foot - he had walked a lot of places, a lot of the time, either when he decided that his poor, unfortunately-named horse deserved a break, or, much more pertinently, after he’d decided to become a travelling bard a year or so ago, and gleefully deprived himself of the opportunity to ride at all. He was well-used to walking, and could keep up with Geralt and Roach, no problem.

That did not mean, however, that he would suffer the indignity of being made to travel alongside a mighty witcher and his esteemed mount _on foot_ in silence.

Apologies to Geralt of fucking Rivia, but if he had decided to attempt to get rid of Jaskier by heartily inconveniencing him, he was damn well going to have to deal with the consequences of his decisions.

“Surely, it wouldn’t hurt to allow me to ride alongside you, Geralt? I weigh next to nothing, I’ll have you know, Roach won’t even know I’m there... Or, she wouldn’t, were it not for the fact that I am, once again, carrying all of our conversations for the both of us.”

Geralt grunted.

“Geralt! My feet are no doubt more blister than flesh, at this point, and you won’t allow me even a small bit of respite?”

The witcher raised an eyebrow at Jaskier’s claim, and alright, fine, it was pretty easy to tell that he was exaggerating just a tiny little bit, given the jaunty pace he kept, but that didn’t make Geralt any less _mean_.

“I’m going to die, you know,” Jaskier announced magnanimously. “I’m about three minutes away from passing out from exhaustion and becoming crow fodder when you leave me in the dirt, cherishing your _blessed silence_.”

This did earn him a look from Geralt, but it wasn’t a _look_ \- if anything, Geralt was _assessing_ his claim before deciding to sort it, swiftly and firmly, into the _bullshit_ pile.

“You’re fine,” he grunted, and Jaskier gave him a wounded look.

“I most certainly am not!”

The White Wolf had, however, once again decided simply not to bother with the bard, persistent as he was. Truly, Jaskier felt insulted at how easily the witcher managed to ignore his every move.

He did, though, attempt to keep up his complaints and wear the witcher down, but saw little success. Really, it was most impressive - they had managed to reach the town that awaited them on their path without Geralt having relented, and Jaskier had truly been made to walk the whole way.

Well, if that was what it took for the witcher to warm up to him, so be it. Jaskier would shoulder the burden, ungracefully and full of complaints as he was wont to do.

The town that they had made their destination was a shitty little hovel named Beled, with one shitty little tavern that doubled as a shitty little inn for the pair to stay in. Jaskier, now that _Toss a Coin_ was earning him an actual living as a bard and he no longer had to scrounge at scraps to sustain himself, did not quite allow the joy that came from finally being able to afford a room to curb the disappointment he felt at the state of the hovel they’d no doubt be staying in that night, reeking of pestilence as the whole damn town was - unless, of course, Geralt decided to move on before that could happen, in which case Jaskier had an entirely different set of things to complain about. Like the dirt. And how it got stuck in his hair whenever he had to sleep on the forest floor.

He didn’t know, not really, how much of the complaining he did was genuine, and how much was just lip service so that he might be able to continue a conversation, however one-sided, with the witcher. He did rather suspect that it was mainly the latter - unlike he claimed, Jaskier was not quite a stupid nineteen-year-old who had languished in the luxuries of his noble family for most of his formative years, and thus he wasn’t as used to affluence as he claimed. In fact, he was quite accustomed to the general unglamorous lifestyle of a witcher, for the obvious reasons.

That didn’t mean he wasn’t about to absolutely lay into the abhorrent quality of Beled’s public services the moment he was out of earshot of anyone he might substantially offend.

The two of them, having their priorities sorted in similar fashion, sat in the tavern nursing lukewarm ales, and Jaskier allowed himself a brief moment of pride at the progress he’d made with the witcher. Not only did he no longer outright tell Jaskier to go away and leave him be, he also allowed the man to sit with him as they drank. Ordinarily, he would have chalked that up as a small victory, but with Geralt, he might as well have made a stunning emotional breakthrough what with how relentlessly he seemed to work against any semblance of companionship that Jaskier had to offer.

“Witcher,” came a voice, interrupting Jaskier’s musing and, most likely, the silence that Geralt was finally enjoying. “I’ve got a job for you.”

The speaker - the owner of the tavern - was a stocky, middle-aged man, ragged and stinking of... the gods only knew what, really, but Jaskier could hazard a guess that the last time the man had bathed, Jaskier had most likely still been a mere human being.

Geralt grunted at him.

“There’s been a creature, attacking and murdering our townspeople. I’ll give you sixty ducats to get rid of it.”

“Double that.”

“I’m not made of money, witcher!”

Jaskier snorted into his ale. “Could have fooled me, what with your extortionate prices.”

This had not been a wise declaration, by any means. The general consensus on the matter was that one did not simply insult an individual whose hospitality one wished to indulge in, but, in fairness to Jaskier, the prices the man kept were indeed eye-wateringly high, and his proposed compensation to Geralt laughably low. The man who’d wanted him to deal with a _grain thief_ in Posada had paid him over double the reeking, shambling mess of a man’s offer, for crying out loud.

Besides, Jaskier reasoned, the guy was also a dick, and the bard believed staunchly in giving at least as good as he got.

The man himself, however, had a vastly different opinion on the situation.

“And you! What do you think you’re doing?”

Jaskier had several answers for the man, all of which would serve only the purpose of digging himself deeper into the hole he’d made for himself. “Just... Making conversation.”

Damn it. All those years learning from Erland and he had not, in fact, managed to imitate the art of sounding deceptively even when he spoke, enough to make the other person, his partner and opponent in his verbal ventures, feel like an idiot regardless of the situation. No, when Jaskier did it, he just sounded like a pillock himself. Tosh.

“Is that right, bard? Well, you won’t be sleeping here tonight, I’ll tell you that,” the innkeeper snarled, and Jaskier supposed that that was to be taken as a threat.

“Oh no,” he said, deadpan and plaintive. “Whatever shall I do without all those horrific diseases I would have contracted from staying in this... fine establishment?”

“Jaskier.”

Geralt’s grumble of a warning could equally have been for the benefit of the bard, or his coin, but, given the vein that had begun to throb on the forehead of the apparently quite easily agitated innkeeper, was quite timely. Much as Jaskier enjoyed saying things he probably shouldn’t have, he did not much enjoy the consequences. After all, how was he to look his fellows in the eye if word got out that he’d had his teeth kicked in by a whoreson who had the hygiene standards of a defecating ox?

Not mollified in the slightest, the innkeeper glared at the pair of them. “I’ve half a mind not to pay you at all, witcher, if your companion wants so badly to burn away any goodwill anyone might have for you.”

“You do realise that if this is a town-wide problem, he can just get a contract from someone else,” Jaskier couldn’t help but point out. Really, it was like the man thought they were _stupid_.

The man shot him with yet another piercing glower, which Jaskier met evenly, with the confidence of a man who had been booted from taverns regularly enough to to have had experience with the situation.

“Fine,” grunted the man. “I’ll give you a hundred ducats, witcher, and I’ll allow the bard to stay, but then you’re to get rid of the creature before the morn.”

“He got a hundred and fifty for dealing with a grain thief,” Jaskier interrupted, earning himself two glares, this time.

Fair enough.

“A hundred twenty, and a half-price room, if the bard shuts up for the rest of the night.”

“Deal,” Geralt said, a little too quickly for Jaskier’s liking.

He would have protested the injustice inflicted upon him, were it not for the fact that it would have cost Geralt his compensation. The things he did for this man...

He did, of course, accompany Geralt on the actual hunt for the mysterious creature that was apparently massacring the people of Beled, and, once they were out of earshot of the unpleasant innkeeper, Jaskier immediately struck up another conversation with his companion.

“So, what creature do you think it is that’s wondering from house to house, murdering the innocent?”

“Don’t know,” Geralt grunted. He was feeling especially verbose that night, then, if he was actually deigning to answer Jaskier’s flippant queries with actual words.

“Ooh, do you think it’s a vampire? That would make a terrific song, I’ll tell you that much. The mighty White Wolf of Rivia felling a vampire, in the most disgusting little hovel this side of the continent!”

“Hm.”

They had entered the contract with little information - the cause of death, and the circumstances under which the attacks themselves occurred, were given to them in painfully brief and uninformative statements. Apparently the murders were _gory_ and _happened at night_ , which was about as helpful as them saying that the victims were _dead_ and _had not been dead earlier_. It was all a little ridiculous, to be honest.

Still, the lack of information passed on by the innkeeper was not particularly worrisome. They had, after all, swiftly been directed to the local mortician - a nice enough young lass, the innkeeper had leered, who’d moved to Beled a few months ago and picked up her father’s old trade. With the promise that she would likely have at least one of the corpses on hand, unburied, for the witcher to examine, the pair set off quickly to the girl’s place of abode.

They had found her house quickly enough - it reeked of death, which was fitting enough for a place full of corpses, and a significant enough amount of them, too, given the fact that the inhabitants of the town dropped like flies anyways, due to the remarkably subpar conditions that left Jaskier more surprised that anyone was still living there at all. What with all the deaths from starvation, malnutrition, exhaustion, dehydration, and all the various diseases one could practically smell festering in the grotty little streets, the recent epidemic of killings had made little impact to the overall death toll in the town - which was, by some wonder, still sustaining a constant population despite the lethal conditions.

Geralt had not deigned to knock or ask permission to enter - rather, he had simply barged through the door as if he had no manners at all, surprising the girl within, who looked up, startled but not particularly fearful, from the body she had been hunched over, as the witcher entered.

Jaskier slipped in after him, a tad less forcefully.

“You the mortician?” Geralt grunted, polite as ever.

“Yes,” she said, seemingly unfazed by the impromptu home invasion. “You’re a witcher.”

“Do you have the bodies?”

“I have one, a victim from two nights ago that I’ve yet to bury,” the mortician said, getting up from her current corpse. “Let me fetch it for you. I can’t remember his name, but he was a rowdy drunk. Lukas down at the tavern was always complaining about him.”

She let out an awkward little laugh as she went away to fetch the body.

“That tavern-owner seems like he’d complain a lot about anyone,” Jaskier grumbled, to the ears of nobody in particular.

Returning with a body almost twice her size, the slight mortician tried to set it down gingerly on the the free examination bench adjacent to the one she’d been hunched over, and failed miserably - due mainly to the sheer size of the corpse she was lugging rather than due to any lack of strength on her part. Who knew hauling dead people around for a living would be so conductive to building one’s strength up?

“Here he is,” she said, brushing curly blonde hair from her eyes with fingers that seemed perpetually bloodstained. “The latest murder victim, for one witcher and his... associate, I suppose.”

How cruel, that even a complete stranger would deny Jaskier’s budding friendship with Geralt.

Stepping towards the body, after the white-haired witcher, Jaskier took it upon himself to also subtly look over the body.

The man must have looked even more of a sight at the scene, as even now, the blotches and stains of his own blood on his skin were overwhelmingly prominent, despite the fact that the body had seemingly been cleaned somewhat for the examination. The man’s torso, too, was covered in wide gouges from which blood would have sprayed as he died, likely in utter agony. A jagged slit, too, something from a claw, most likely, ran across his throat, exposing his gullet to the world as though whatever creature had attacked him had sought to open a little window into his neck. His chest, too, had suffered the same fate - flesh and bone alike had bean cleaved through in clean, swift strikes, leaving its contents bared for the world to see. The man’s stomach, however, had suffered the worst of the damage, though - Jaskier was fairly certain that the only reason that the man’s diced insides were, in fact, still _inside_ him at all was due to a fair bit of posthumous intervention.

It was gruelling.

Curiously, however, there was no smell of any kind of creature on the man at all.

Despite the wounds being consistent with some kind of mauling, from an animal with most formidable claws, there was no scent indicating such a thing at all. Whatever had killed the man, it hadn’t been a creature - Jaskier, as well as the rest of the world, had yet to discover any living being that was entirely scentless.

Surreptitiously, he eyed Geralt, to see if the man had come to a similar conclusion. What with how stoic and non-verbal the man was most of the time, Jaskier had taken it upon himself to attempt to learn how to read him.

The witcher’s face was impassive, as he stared down the mangled corpse of the man.

See, _attempt_ had been the operative word, there. Jaskier had _attempted_ to learn to read Geralt, with an unfortunately limited amount of success beyond the now intrinsic familiarity with the _Geralt is ignoring the bard_ expression he so often wore.

“Not a monster,” he grunted, finally.

“Wh- what?” the mortician laughed, seeming sceptical. “But he was mauled. Look at him!”

“No scent. He wasn’t attacked by any creature.”

“What do you think happened, then?”

“Curse.”

“A serial curse, Geralt?” Jaskier snorted. “And who would cast it? Last I checked, there weren’t any sorcerers deigning to wander around backwater towns like this long enough to cast curses left and right!”

Geralt of fucking Rivia, insufferable as he was, merely glanced at the bard with a steely glint in his eye, and repeated himself. “There’s no scent.”

“There’s no wizard, either!”

Jaskier’s voice was raised a little bit, but it was performative, a vector to carry his incredulity across to his audience and nothing more. Still, the mortician’s eyes flickered to him, nervously, and he shot her an apologetic look. It wouldn’t do to terrorise her in her own house, after all.

“Jaskier. It was not a creature.”

The bard made a strangled noise. “That doesn’t mean it was a curse!”

“What was it then?”

And that, right there, was the question. Geralt was right, it definitely wasn’t a creature, but a _serial cursing_? Really, that kind of thing was just... It was stupid, and pointless, and dumb. Besides, surely if an experienced sorcerer wanted to commit murder, a plague of some sort would have been a much better choice, especially in a place such as Beled where the inhabitants were contracting everything left and right _anyways_.

Still, though, that didn’t exactly disprove that it was a curse, it just proved that Jaskier would have made a much better murderer than whoever this idiot was.

“Right, then,” he relented, nodding to Geralt. “What should we do, in that case?”

Geralt simply set off.

Rolling his eyes, Jaskier, as always, followed him.

Perhaps he should have expected this, after all, what with witchers not particularly being too geared towards human affairs - Jaskier seemed to recall some mocking leers about witchers being idiots if they thought they could take the law into their own hands, come to think of it - and Geralt of fucking Rivia _specifically_ being so anti-social that he wouldn’t be able to tell a truth from a lie even if it bit him in his spiteful, horse-riding arse, but to call Geralt’s investigative technique _lacking_ would be the understatement of the century.

The oaf’s idea of how to adequately catch a murderous, curse-happy sorcerer was to wander around the town, asking for a sorcerer.

Jaskier’s head hurt.

“Geralt,” he said, for the thousandth time, hoping against hope that the man was not simply ignoring his pleas out of spite. “Geralt, this isn’t how this works. You aren’t going to find a reclusive, killer sorcerer by bloody asking around the place if anyone’s seen one! You’re just giving him a warning to pack up, leave, and take his gaudy curse elsewhere!”

“Hm.”

Oh, dear gods.

“Geralt, whoever it is that’s doing the cursing isn’t going to deliver themselves to you on a silver platter just because you asked them to!”

Still, the witcher paid him no heed. Right, then. That was fine. It wasn’t like Jaskier wanted them - wanted _him_ \- to actually do something productive, or get paid, after all. If Geralt wanted to waste a week chasing sorcerers in the most blatant fashion possible, who was Jaskier to stop him?

One thing this whole incident was giving him, though, was a little bit of insight into the reasons that people didn’t like witchers _taking the law into their own hands_ , so to speak. It was most likely thanks to the fact that they were astonishingly bad at it.

The sun had started to set over the damn town of Beled, dipping below the horizon in its customary, colourful send-off, when Geralt’s sorcerer-quest actually yielded a result, to Jaskier’s utter amazement. Apparently the whole world was just very, very stupid today. Or perhaps Jaskier was finally going mad.

“Heard you were looking for a sorcerer,” the man who’d approached them spat, looking like no sorcerer Jaskier had ever seen before - a tad bit too rotten and diseased, in his opinion.

“Yes,” Geralt grunted, Jaskier still trying to process that _they had actually found a sorcerer_. They had found a sorcerer, in Beled, with Geralt’s absolutely bloody awful technique.

Was the sorcerer innocent, then? Or was he simply revealing himself to throw off suspicion? Jaskier had been wrong about the reasons witchers weren’t advised to get involved with human affairs after all. It wasn’t that they were crap at it. It was the fact that it would drive them absolutely fucking _insane_ , apparently.

“My name is Darius,” he said. “I am capable of the most grand of sorcerous acts.”

“Such as?” Geralt prompted gruffly.

Darius replied with a flourish, grandiose and over-the-top. If this was the man who had cursed the townsfolk to be mauled, Jaskier could see why he’d gone with something so flashy. He was the very definition of gaudy.

“Why, my dear witcher, surely you are familiar with acts of sorcery,” Darius winked, and Jaskier raised an eyebrow at him.

However, neither he nor the White Wolf paid the bard any attention. That was fine. At least Jaskier was getting a break from this nonsense. When they left Beled, hopefully with Lukas the innkeeper’s coin, Jaskier was going to make a great number of hints as to why Geralt should stick to monsters only from here on out. Besides, hadn’t he picked up the Butcher of Blaviken moniker after a similar incident? It seemed that Geralt of fucking Rivia had not learnt, in all his years of life, how to leave well enough alone.

“I am indeed,” Geralt replied to Darius. “But I’m curious as to what kind of sorcery you yourself are capable of.”

“Oh, anything you might desire. Enchantments, potions, protection, and the like...”

“How about curses?”

Darius stopped in his tracks.

Jaskier tried his best not to roll his eyes. Did Geralt realise how that sounded? A witcher asking for a curse. Honestly.

“If that is what you so desire, my witcher.” The man’s voice was cautious now, flamboyance drained from his stout frame.

“My friend means no ill will to anyone, I assure you,” Jaskier interrupted lazily. “He’s merely curious as to your capabilities. He’s met quite a few sorcerers in his time, I should think - he’s appraising you.”

 _You’re welcome, Geralt_. Honestly, one would think that someone as intimidating as him would have some sort of clue as to the kind of impression he gave off, but apparently the White Wolf of Rivia was either clueless or didn’t care.

Darius schooled a smile back onto his face. “I suppose I could do curses, too, then, witcher.”

Fuck it, this conversation was taking entirely too long.

“So if I wanted to have someone killed, you could curse them for me? If I had the coin, of course, my good... sorcerous acquaintance,” the bard interrupted, drawing Darius’ attention.

“I- Yes, I suppose I could. But be warned, these magics are-”

“Great!” Jaskier grinned. “Great, that’s great, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you outright, as both me and my friend are a little out of our depths here... you know, this investigative thing isn’t really either of our area of expertise. Honestly, this sounds like the set-up to a bad joke of all things, doesn’t it? A witcher, a bard, and a sorcerer all walk into an alley... Did you curse the good inhabitants of the town of Beled to be mauled to death by some mysterious force or not?”

“I- what?”

The silence that followed Jaskier’s outburst was palpable, and the expression of incredulous confusion that appeared on Darius’ face told the witchers everything they needed to know. At least, it told Jaskier everything he needed to know. Geralt... well, one could never really tell with Geralt. His mind was an enigma, and Jaskier had no idea how it worked.

Wait, no. Jaskier hazarded a glance over at the witcher, who had a pensive look on his face.

“You’re not a sorcerer,” Geralt said slowly.

Oh.

“I- I-” Darius squeaked, before wilting, his demeanour changing entirely. “No. I’m not. But damn it, I have to make a living somehow here, and it’s not like there’s that much you can do in a shithole like Beled! I don’t see how exactly it’s your business anyways, witcher - haven’t you monsters to hunt?”

“There are no monsters in Beled.”

“What about the one tearing people apart?”

“Curse.”

“Oh.”

Another moment passed in an awkward bout of silence, and the three men just stared at each other for a little bit. It was rather uncomfortable.

Regaining his composure, Darius glared at Geralt. “Well then, what are you doing poking around in our business then, witcher? Go back to whoever paid you, return their coin, and leave us be. If it’s not a creature, it’s a person, and that’s not your jurisdiction.”

“Your critique has been heard and duly noted, my good fellow, thank you very much,” Jaskier said smoothly, very clearly looking down at the man. “We will, of course, be out of your collective hair in a moment, but don’t you have better things to do than preach at us? Townsfolk to swindle, perhaps, or diseases to contract?”

With one last glare at the pair of them, Darius scuttled out of the dim alley, leaving Geralt looking at Jaskier with somewhat of a contemplative expression.

“You mentioned disease a lot.”

Oh, sweet gods above. Was Geralt of fucking Rivia attempting to start a conversation with him, Jaskier the most humble of bards, unprompted, and with no ulterior motive to boot? He never thought he’d see the day.

“Yeah, well, it reeks,” he said, and would you look at that, it’s him who’s gone and pulled a Geralt this time. “I mean, what with the amount of mould and rot and other disgusting little surprises lining the streets, it’s a wonder we haven’t actually caught anything yet, honestly.”

Geralt gave a small, noncommittal hum.

“So, should we leave, then? Tell the charming innkeeper that _thank you very much, but it was a person, sir_ , and make our way towards the next town, where they might actually have a monster that needs hunting? Because honestly, that sounds like a great plan. We should go with that plan.”

“Jaskier. The people are still in danger.”

“The people don’t want you here! You heard Darius, and I know he doesn’t hold the minority opinion! If they want to be massacred so badly, let them! Don’t stick your neck out for people who’ll condemn you for it!”

“I never took you to be a cruel man, Jaskier,” Geralt said, and wasn’t that rich coming from a man who’d barely ever deigned to speak properly to him? Why was it Geralt’s place to make assumptions about Jaskier’s character, and act so disappointed in him when he never even bothered to get to know him in the first place?

Jaskier knew what he’d signed up for when he decided to follow Geralt from Posada, and he was a patient enough man, but damn it, if Geralt couldn’t be fucked to say two words to him most days, who was he to try and take the moral high ground?

“I never took you to be an idiot, Geralt of Rivia,” Jaskier retorted. “But if you want a repeat of Blaviken, go ahead. We’ll see if my singing’s good enough to fix your reputation a second time.”

Geralt flinched, and yeah, okay, that had been a low blow. Jaskier didn’t know exactly what had happened in Blaviken, but he’d heard the rumours, and he could take an educated guess.

“Sorry,” Jaskier back-pedalled. “Sorry. That was cruel.”

Gods, he was so tired. What was he even doing anymore?

Geralt was still looking at him. Had he done something? Stupid question, of course he had, he’d brought up that whole Blaviken mess that he _knew_ the man was sensitive about. But why-

Wait.

Something clicked in Jaskier’s mind, something irrelevant to the current situation of maybe having ruined his definitely budding friendship with Geralt - something that was so _obvious_ , that in hindsight, he felt slightly stupid for not having seen it earlier.

He looked up, glamoured-blue eyes locking with bright yellow.

“Geralt, remind me,” he said. “You said that there was no scent on the bodies. What about the townspeople?”

“What do you mean?”

“Didn’t the bodies have the scent of _other people_ on them?”

“Yes,” Geralt frowned. “But nobody else in the town smelt of death. Not bloody ones.”

“But _someone did_.”

The witcher frowned, the _how do you know_ that he seemed reluctant to voice written all over his face. Jaskier sighed dramatically.

“Think about it. Who, in the town, would pass under your... smell-detector, unnoticed?”

The witcher’s expression was still disconcertingly blank.

Nope. This wasn’t going anywhere. Damn Geralt of Rivia, seemingly so intent on ruining Jaskier’s big moment of revelation.

Screw it.

“It was the mortician, the mortician is the murderer.”

Surprise overtook Geralt’s features, in an expression that the bard would treasure forever. It was almost _visible_ , the way the pieces were clicking together in his mind. Of _course_ it was the mortician. What with the expectation that the scent of death would cling to her, as well as the fact that she would have most likely have seen enough mauled bodies to be able to convincingly falsify one, she seemed like a perfect suspect, in retrospect.

Jaskier remembered the gaping throat and shivered. She’d most likely sliced the dead man’s vocal chords to stop him from crying out and drawing attention as she killed him.

“Fuck,” Geralt said, and Jaskier had to agree.

“So, what do we do now?”

Geralt’s brows furrowed, as he drifted off into thought. It would have been surprising - highly surprising, indeed - if the thought of Blaviken didn’t cross his mind.

Why couldn’t the creature simply have been a creature? A particularly intelligent and stealthy alghoul, perhaps, or even a vampire... It would have been so much easier. There wouldn’t have been the whole moral issue of whether the townspeople would decide that a human life taken by a witcher, murder or not, was enough ground to chase them out of Beled completely in the middle of the night.

But no. Life, or destiny, or whatever it was, seemed determined to be a dick. Nothing could ever be _simple_. You go to hunt a grain thief, you stumble upon a ragtag bunch of elves struggling to survive. You take a contract to kill a creature mercilessly slaughtering the inhabitants of a backwater town, of course it’s going to turn out to be a serial killer! Why wouldn’t it! Gods, it was just like one of those philosophical thinkpieces, written only by the most pretentious of scholars, where the real monster turned out to be _humanity all along_.

It was such a steaming load of _bullshit_ that Jaskier felt like banging his head against the wall. Even Filavandrel’s stubborn myopia hadn’t been this frustrating.

“Jaskier,” Geralt said, and the bard blinked. “What should we do?”

At this, he had to laugh - but it wasn’t entirely an unhappy sound. There was a degree of genuine joy in there, alongside the incredulity. “You’re asking me what we should do,” Jaskier grinned. “Does that mean we’re friends now?”

“What?”

“I’ll take that as a yes, then! Oh, my next ballad will be one for the ages - how the White Wolf of Rivia and his beautiful and intelligent bardic friend saved the town of Beled from a vile and monstrous killer!”

Exasperation settled over Geralt’s features, but that in itself was progress in Jaskier’s book. Who’d have thought that all it took was to end up trying to catch a serial killer together?

“Jaskier. The mortician.”

Oh. Right. They actually had to do something about the murderous undertaker. Well, that rather put a damper on the situation, given that Geralt’s usual solutions amounted to _kill it_ , while Jaskier’s rather more extensive set of actions to be taken included such faithful masterstrokes as _kill it_ , _run away_ , and, on a few memorable occasions, _delegate_.

None of these were particularly helpful in the given situation - killing people was firmly taboo, running away would solve nothing as the danger was not to them, and there was nobody to delegate to.

Actually, on second thought, leaving Beled forever still sounded very appealing.

“What if we captured her?” Jaskier mused. “Actually, what if I captured her? The big problem here is that people don’t like witchers taking the law into their own hands, so to speak, but if an ordinary human bard were to capture the insane and very dangerous murderess, nobody should have any complaint, right? Then we could simply deposit the strange and, in hindsight, most definitely insane woman on the doorstep of whoever it is that deals with these things here and be on our merry way.”

Geralt grunted.

“I’ll take that both as an agreement and an acknowledgement of my under-appreciated genius, then, shall I?”

But Geralt never got to answer, seeing as how then, because this was a shitty day and an even shittier situation, a scream shattered the night. Powerful and overwhelming, like a wounded animal - Jaskier _knew_ that it was her, it was the damn murderer, and, judging from the way Geralt started sprinting like the world was ending in the direction if the sound, so did he.

Groaning to himself, Jaskier readied himself to follow, to run after Geralt and help him save whatever unfortunate individual had drawn the ire of Beled’s resident psychopath, when he felt a hand at his scruff, and a blade at his throat.

Brilliant.

Glancing backwards, he attempted to get an eyeful of his attacker, scent almost completely hidden under layers of grime and shit, probably - masked. It was masked, and blended perfectly with the natural reek of the town’s streets, evidently odious enough for the average person to pick out too, given with how perfectly the probably-the-mortician had managed to match it.

“How?” Jaskier rasped. “I didn’t even suspect you until _literally_ three minutes ago!”

“Well then, maybe I’m just smarter than you,” the definitely-the-mortician said, grin evident in her voice. “I’ve been following you for ages, stupid.”

“Of course you have.”

Unbidden, his mind flickered back to when he’d raised his voice in the woman’s house earlier that afternoon. He’d thought he’d put her one edge with his yelling, when really...

When really what had spooked her was they fact that he and Geralt had seen through the _creature_ ruse. She either hadn’t known of or hadn’t expected a witcher’s heightened sense of smell, and hadn’t expected it to come into play. She was careful.

Fuck, she was careful, and she was good.

“Was that scream just a distraction for Geralt, then? How’d you organise it?”

There was that smirk in her voice again, audible even as her dagger bit deeper into the flesh of his throat. “He’s stupidly noble. And there are plenty of kids bumming around in the streets that can be easily bribed. Pass messages along faster than any messenger can, too.”

It really was quite lucky for the bard that she liked to boast of her exploits so much, but then, what was the point of going to so much effort for one’s plans if nobody would ever know of them to appreciate it? Either way, it suited Jaskier - another second spent bragging was another second he spent breathing, and another second to plan. He’d had his throat slit before, enough to damn near kill him, and he couldn’t say he was too eager to repeat the experience, now or ever.

It was really too bad for the mortician, though, that she was so small. And, unknowingly, so much weaker than Jaskier.

He leant back, and fell, atop the woman holding him hostage. She didn’t - couldn’t - keep her balance, but she kept her grip, tightened it as soon as she started to fall, but Jaskier had already taken advantage of her split-second of surprise, and was reaching up to grab her arm. His fingers fastened around it, pulling her dagger away from his throat, and when they hit the ground, steel didn’t bite into his flesh as it surely would have had he been even a little slower. He felt, he heard the air rushing out of his would-be killer’s lungs, winding her, and he took that little window of opportunity to spring up and away from her reach, twisting the weapon from her hand as he went.

One did not, after all, forget all those years of witcher training just because one had acquired a glamour and a lute, after all. Too bad the mortician hadn’t seen that coming.

Too bad for her, rather. It suited Jaskier just fine, if you asked him.

Clambering to her feet, the grimy woman pulled out yet another dagger, and launched herself at Jaskier.

She was small, slight and fast, but there was no real technique behind her movement. Jaskier dodged her first strike easily, not even needing to parry her blade. It was clear that she had not trained to fight - she relied on overwhelming her opponent more than anything else, and that simply wouldn’t fly against a witcher.

Jaskier was fast, too, he had trained for speed, and he’d trained his speed for agility. Still, he was so used to fighting larger, more stationary opponents - this was definitely going to be an interesting duel.

The woman stood opposite him, having turned once she’d overshot. Why wasn’t she taking the offensive? Oh, well. Jaskier shrugged and ran at her, twisting around her blade and sinking his, with a backhanded grip, into her shoulder from behind as he passed, his own momentum freeing it from her flesh as he continued on his trajectory.

A scream, choked off, tore itself from her throat - she’d meant to mute it, but hadn’t prepared for the pain. Jaskier took another pass, this time slashing for her throat, and the gargling chokes that followed his strike told him that he had struck true.

How very anticlimactic.

He followed her wide-eyed gaze as she fell - oh. His medallion lay on the floor, having fallen out of its hiding place in his doublet’s inside pockets.

So she knew for sure, then.

Jaskier walked over to where it lay and picked the medallion up, wiping it off and replacing it on his person.

Not a minute later, Geralt ran back into the alley.

“Jaskier!”

“Geralt.”

His yellow eyes alighted on the dead body of the mortician - the mortician Jaskier had killed, the one who he had chosen to kill despite the fact that he’d certainly have been able to apprehend her had he wanted to. The woman he had killed partly to keep his cover, but then again, partly because she most definitely deserved it.

“You-”

Jaskier gave a weak shrug and an almost-smile, and tucked the dagger he still held into his belt. “Turns out, she wasn’t all that great in a fight.”

There were inconsistencies with that statement, glaring and obvious - everything from the dagger in the dead woman’s hand, to the abundance of blood on the body, too much to have leaked out after death - but either Geralt didn’t care to look, or he just didn’t want to say.

“She set a trap,” the White Wolf said. “She wanted to kill you.”

“It is true that ladies love throwing themselves at me,” Jaskier said, but he was too tired to accompany the joke with a smile. “Do you want to collect the coin, or..?”

Geralt shook his head. “We should leave.”

Jaskier closed his eyes. “If only you’d thought so earlier.”

“The town is safe. A hundred and twenty ducats aren’t worth the hassle.”

“Next time, if it’s not a monster, we’re not getting involved. I’m starting to notice a trend of it never really ending well.”

“We’ll be sleeping in the forest,” Geralt informed the bard, the barest hint of a smile on his face. “Though your hair already looks a mess.”

“Yeah, I fell.”

Something wet landed on Jaskier’s nose, and he looked up towards the sky. Clouds hung over the shitty little town of Beled, and, as raindrops began to fall, Jaskier stood - better leave whilst the streets were still merely grimy instead of outright swampy.

“You’re bleeding.”

Oh. That was right. The death-dealing mortician had cut him, after all, before he’d beaten her. It was barely a scratch. Jaskier was reasonably certain that after the scab had healed, there wouldn’t even be a trace of it under his glamour, shallow as it was.

He grinned. “It’s barely a scratch, Geralt. Though it’s going to sound amazing in my next song - how I heroically almost had my throat slashed as I took care of a serial killer all by myself!”

The White Wolf snorted. “Nobody likes a self-serving ballad.”

And, at a campsite just south-east of Beled, that was the excuse Jaskier cited back to Geralt, that it would be downright arrogant to sing a tale of his own exploits, as inwardly, he despaired utterly at the complete lack of rhymes for _mortician_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forgot to give mortician lady a name, whoops. Why did I add a serial killer into my witcher!jaskier fic again? Probably for that one-liner about Geralt’s shitty investigative skills, honestly. And so that Jaskier could be a BAMF. Please don’t unsubscribe, i swear the next chapters are actually gonna be good!!!
> 
> Also is it better or worse if I tell you that Beled is Hungarian for Your Intestine? Granted, that joke has a highly specific audience, but it was fun while I was writing :D
> 
> Also it’s crazy how this chapter is longer than all of my other wips, I mean HOW
> 
>  **Also!!** Because this work is 3rd person limited and Jaskier’s POV and so will not come up in story for probably a while, if ever, I will now confirm that Geralt did not, in fact, notice the discrepancies between Jaskier’s ‘She was kinda shit lol’ claim and everything else, mainly because he wasn’t looking for them, and also because he does kinda trust Jaskier so he’s not about to start poking holes in his claims.
> 
> Idk. This is... not my greatest chapter. I’m sorry.


	6. Impulse-Control, and Reasons Why it is Good, Actually

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Winter in Kaer Seren allowed for extra bad decisions that would not have been made otherwise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hjdfghjkahfgjah i need to give Coën more things to do in these chapters but the fight in this one kind of got away from me whoops
> 
> I apologise for the lack of updates, but I must study for mocks now so I will update even less
> 
> Because every exam in the uk has been cancelled
> 
> Except for mine

Julian wasn’t stupid, by any stretch of the mind - regardless of how determined he was to play the fool at any given moment. He knew as well as anyone that attentiveness and competence were expected of him as a witcher, not for the sake of whoever was mentoring him, but for himself. To fail to perform adequately in his training was only a method to ensure his death, either via trials or after them, as a fully-fledged witcher. So he did - he did perform to the best of his abilities, internalising every lesson, every little scrap of advice tossed his way.

The trick, though, lay in appearances. Was he paying attention when old Keldar lectured at them, grilled him and Coën on the given monster of the day? Absolutely. Was he also going to _look_ like he was paying attention? What, and give Keldar the satisfaction? Not a chance. The man had cemented his fate the first time he’d snarked at Julian for not knowing the answer to a question. He had been downright _rude_. Whilst the cantankerous old witcher did not suffer fools gladly, Julian himself did not suffer _arseholes_ gladly, and so had been born a truly majestic rivalry between teacher and student - a feud so astounding, that surely, if any witcher were the slightest bit lyrically inclined, there would have been ballads written on the subject.

At least, that’s what Julian swore. Coën, on the other hand, was of the opinion that Julian could do much better in his rivalries than winding crabby old men up.

In a way, he was right, Julian supposed. It simply wouldn’t do to acknowledge Keldar as a worthy opponent, when all the man seemed to do was be boorish and surly in Julian’s general direction whenever the answer he blurted out to his gruff questions was not, in fact, perfectly correct.

Then again, he knew that at least some of the older witchers from their school found Julian’s distaste for old Keldar highly amusing, and the boy loved to lavish in the attention it got him when they returned for the winter, and word of Julian’s antics inevitably reached their ears.

“You know, as entertaining as it is, there are better things to be known for than an irksome thorn in someone’s side,” Coën had said to him, once.

“I’m not known as a thorn in someone’s side, thank you, Coën. I’m very much a general problem,” Julian had retorted, earning a snort from his friend.

Even so, Julian’s childish feud with the instructor, much to the delight and amusement of onlookers, continued. And really, it wasn’t like Kaer Seren had an overwhelming amount of entertainment opportunities, either. And the boy was rather good at putting on a show.

Despite the bleak winter and the annual return of the other Griffin witchers - or perhaps because of it - the training had intensified, their previous exercises seeming almost laughably easy compared to their current regimen. Julian and Coën began every day at the crack of dawn, before the sun was even a sliver over the horizon, and their drills only ended after the sun had set, with minimal breaks in between for respite.

Sometimes, they garnered themselves an audience, now, and whenever one of the older witchers were caught observing them, they would, without fail, be volunteered by Erland as a sparring partner for either Julian or Coën, which was always fun.

Julian got the feeling that they were holding back less and less every passing day, and wasn’t that a fun way to add to his collection of bruises? Beaten up by a man decades older than him.

The lessons with Keldar, though, in contrast, had only gotten far more amusing. What with having an abundance of witchers in the keep, coupled with a fair scarcity of tasks, Julian’s childish tomfoolery had gotten him an _audience_.

“The difference between a graveir and a ghoul, then, Julian, if you insist on being so below standard,” Keldar glared at the boy. “If you’re so unable to recall anything at all, you might at least be able to tell me this.”

“One has two syllables, the other only one,” Julian drawled, earning himself a snort and a shake of the head from Coën, who was hiding his smile by pretending to be highly engrossed in a compendium of... something or other.

“Are you daft, boy?” Keldar barked, rising, as always, to the bait.

“Good question. Perhaps if you were truly as intelligent as you claimed, you could find the answer yourself, oh Master Witcher.”

“In that case I shall confirm my suspicions. Tell me, boy, how do you expect to survive if you cannot answer such a simple question?”

“Oh, I heard a little bit of charm goes a long way out there,” Julian said lazily, blinking his yellow eyes.

“Charm! I suppose you’d charm a bloedzuiger to death, then?” Keldar growled. “Maybe sing it a sonnet and hope for it to keel over?”

“You don’t sing sonnets, you _recite_ them. Have you no culture at all, old man?”

There was a vein twitching in Keldar’s temple - a sign that this conversation was to be short-lived from that moment onwards, halted by Keldar hurling some punishment or other in Julian’s direction in the very near future.

He’d try to make the next few insults count, then.

“Enough with your ceaseless chatter, boy! Hold your tongue and at least attempt to learn something, despite your raging incompetence.”

“Perhaps I could do better if my teacher were more concerned with actually teaching, and less so with attempting to verbally eviscerate his students.”

“If you treated my tutelage with any kind of respect, perhaps I wouldn’t have to!”

“That’s funny. The way I remember it, _you_ were the one who decided it would be awfully amusing to insult me whenever I gave a wrong answer. But perhaps my memory simply doesn’t serve. It would, after all, be unheard of for the esteemed Keldar to actually be incorrect for once. What an enigma.”

“I suppose you’ll be rather less conceited, boy, when you receive your punishment,” Keldar snarled, and Julian blinked at him before continuing, unfazed.

“Oh, gods, no. I wouldn’t dream of being so rude to my esteemed and respected mentors and predecessors.”

He felt satisfaction spark in his chest, then, when Keldar’s composure finally broke completely.

It was slightly less amusing when he was given his punishment. His transgressions had been deemed minor enough that he shouldn’t suffer physically from them - indeed, if he did end up having the shit beaten out of him every time he opened his mouth to insult Keldar, Julian wouldn’t have been much more than a walking mass of bruises and scar tissue, at this point, but in his opinion, Keldar grudgingly handing him a bucket and rag, no doubt still fuming from the lesson, and having him missed-a-spotting for hours on end in the bitingly cold halls of the keep was worse. Physical trauma, he could take, he was vaguely a witcher, after all, but the achingly bitter winter chill that Julian swore was freezing the water in the bucket solid was another thing entirely.

Even more annoying was the fact that his punishment was taking place during dinner-time, the one occasion when he and Coën could actually hold a conversation with the other Griffin witchers. One of them, a good-natured man with long, curly hair and a thick beard, had even taken to giving him constructive criticism on his insults - something Julian highly appreciated, as it simply wouldn’t do to get complacent in his feud with old Keldar.

The fact that he was close enough to hear the vague noises of the other witchers enjoying their meal was simply salt in the wound.

Julian scrubbed at the same area of the hall for the umpteenth time, knowing that, despite Keldar’s adamancy, he had not, in fact, missed the spot given that it was still wet from the last time he’d gone over it. This was _mean_. The old Witcher’s retribution was utterly disproportionate, in Julian’s opinion - it wasn’t like he could have a nice, long, back-and-forth with _himself_ , after all, with no other party complicit. He could only hope that Keldar didn’t think this meant he was _winning_ , however. If the old man thought it fit to take their feud to levels beyond snark in his lessons, Julian would take that invitation to do the same himself. Perhaps he’d have to enlist Coën’s help for a few of his ideas, but...

“Missed a spot,” Keldar informed him, and Julian shook himself, annoyed, from his thoughts to glare at his nemesis.

After a while, the chatter from the dinner that the others were no doubt indulging in - and it was unbelievably petty of Keldar to give up his own meal just to make Julian miserable, really - started to die down, and after a while, the clear sounds of fighting picked up, some way away, to replace the clinking of cutlery and idle, laughing conversations.

“Do you know what they’re doing?”

Keldar grunted. “Having a spar, boy, what do you think?”

“Can I go watch?”

“Could’ve, if you hadn’t missed a spot.”

Julian followed the old witcher’s eyes to where he was glaring at the floor.

“Oh, for the love of- It’s still wet!”

The old witcher harrumphed at that, the glint in his eyes delivering a clear message - if Keldar said that Julian had missed a spot, then Julian had missed a spot.

Fucking _Keldar_.

“If I, perchance, presently answer the questions that I did not answer in class, may I be permitted to attend the spar that is currently ongoing?” Julian tried, and earned himself an amused glance from Keldar, of all things.

“It boggles the mind, how you’ve managed to retain so much of your noble upbringing from so little time actually spent having it.”

Keldar actually sounded entertained, which was the second factor that contributed to Julian’s surprise. The first factor, however, was a tad more significant.

“How did you know I was a noble? I never told anyone, or at least, I don’t think I did. Other than maybe Erland.”

“And yet you make it so obvious, it’s a wonder the entire School doesn’t know.”

Julian flashed him a winning grin, to which the old witcher rolled his eyes. “Go on, then, boy. Let’s have your recapitulation of the lesson.”

Perhaps, despite his initial thoughts, the recital of everything he’d been so adamant he didn’t know earlier was a victory for Julian rather than Keldar, in the end. The stunned look of abject shock on the man’s face was something Julian would treasure until the day he died. Apparently, Keldar hadn’t quite been aware of the extent to which he was playing up his incompetence, which was, to Julian’s mind, one of the best things ever to happen to him. He could barely hold in his laughter.

“Right, then,” Keldar said, pulling himself back together far too soon for Julian’s liking - he’d wanted to treasure the moment for a little longer - and staring at the boy. “I do believe that’s that, then. Run along to the spar, boy. But I must warn you that it’s that, or dinner.”

“Yes, sir,” Julian grinned, dropping his rag into the bucket and taking off before old Keldar could complain.

He followed the noise into one of the larger halls of the keep, not quite as large as the main atrium, but not much smaller. He slid into the room as subtly as a dragon with a sledgehammer, sprinting to the bench where all the spectators were seated, and depositing himself neatly on Coën’s lap.

“Hello to you too, Julian.”

“The bench was full,” Julian defended, making himself comfortable.

This was true, the bench was full - the number of witchers who had returned to winter at Kaer Seren wasn’t huge, but it was more than Julian had been expecting, especially given last year’s turnout. Around a dozen of them had shown up - perhaps a few more, Julian hadn’t counted - but what with the constant complaining of dwindling numbers, it had definitely been more than Julian had assumed would show up. And apparently, there were a few more witchers from their school who hadn’t shown up for the winter.

Either way, there were definitely more witchers than bench-space.

“It’s okay, you can just admit that you’re clingy. I won’t judge,” Coën crooned, earning himself a glare with no real indignation behind it.

The smirks a few of the surrounding witchers shared were not subtle by any means.

“What did I miss?”

“Witchers hitting each other with swords. One of them has a club. Erland complaining about their utter lack of technique.”

As if on cue, Erland called out to one of the witchers sparring. “Good gods, Henrik, are you angling to get yourself killed? Your form is sloppier than my current trainees, and believe you me, that is an issue in its own right!”

Julian snorted. “Hear that, Coën? He’s even shittier than you and your footwork.”

“On the contrary, Julian, I do believe that our esteemed grandmaster was referring to you and your atrocious form.”

Erland shot the both of them an unamused glance, before turning his attention back to the fight.

The match-up was even, with both witchers having similar techniques and skill levels. From an outside perspective, their battle looked cooperative, rather than competitive, as the two men both seemed to be involved in a kind of dance of blades, making every swing parrying every strike perfectly, but neither being quite able to gain any kind of significant upper hand.

Even if one of them - presumably Henrik - did have a form sloppier than the other.

“Alright, the two of you, sit down or else we’ll be here all night,” Erland commanded, eventually. “And Henrik, I hope you don’t mind sharing a few lessons with young Julian and Coën, there, because as is, you’re a raging embarrassment to the School of the Griffin. It’s really a wonder you got any jobs at all, having let yourself become so complacent.”

Henrik, a strapping man with a shock of red hair, and altogether someone who was very intimidating in appearance even without the yellow eyes of a witcher and the fair few scars that littered his skin, looked downright meek under Erland’s gaze. His opponent, a smaller man with narrow features, smirked at him.

“And you!” Erland turned on him, the smirk immediately finding itself wiped off the other witcher’s face. “The fact that you couldn’t get an upper hand when Henrik’s form was worse than that of most _children_ I’ve trained is nothing to smirk about! Do you all revert to helpless babes the moment you leave the keep? Gods, I’d like to see someone competent sparring tonight too, to convince me that the centuries I spent training you were not, in fact, wasted!”

The witcher boasting a club stood, gave Erland a brisk nod, and walked into the room. Seemingly mollified, the grandmaster witcher looked up and down the row of seated witchers, waiting for another volunteer.

Before he - or, perhaps more likely, Coën - could stop it, Julian’s hand was in the air and he’d leapt up from his perch atop his friend, clearly volunteering to fight.

Erland raised an eyebrow.

“Can I fight him?”

Coën made a noise something akin to being strangled.

With exasperation almost tangible in the air, Erland replied with all the vigour of a man who had spent his entire day herding cats. “You won’t be let off training tomorrow if you break something, so bear that in mind.”

“My bones will stay intact, I swear it!”

“Not a bet that I’d take in your favour, Julian, but by all means, go ahead.”

Julian ambled over to the rack of weaponry beside the bench, followed by his friend, whose face spoke volumes about Julian’s latest stunt and also somehow managed to warn him of an impending lecture about impulse control, and picked up a sword, testing its weight in his hand.

“Not that one, Julek, that’s the one with the broken hilt.”

“Why are we keeping a sword with a broken hilt?”

“To keep us observant and on our toes, probably. I don’t know.”

Coën clapped Julian’s shoulder sympathetically as he began to make his way towards the middle of the room, towards his opponent.

“Try not to get beaten up too much. I’d like to actually get some sleep tonight, and I can’t do that if I’m too busy trying to piece you back together.”

“I’ll be sure to try to silence myself, lest my groans of immense pain inconvenience you too much, Coën.”

That earned him an amused snort from his friend... or was it disbelieving? Either way, Coën seemed mollified enough to be entertained.

“But seriously, Julian. Good luck.”

“When have I ever needed it?”

“You mean, aside from all the times you’ve crawled into my lap after you’ve done something similarly stupid, more purple and red than anything else?”

Julian brought his free hand to his heart, gasping exaggeratedly. “That never happened, Coën, my good friend! Wherever did you come up with such lies and slander?”

It was bravado, mainly, but Julian was confident in it. Surely, it was better to retain some sort of confidence and optimism in any given situation than to simply resign oneself to hopelessness all the time, no? Regardless, even if it wasn’t, it allowed Julian to have rather a lot more fun in the moment than if he deigned to resign himself to the stoic and grumpy life of the more boring of witchers. If the expectation of the general populace was that witchers should unlearn how to enjoy life, then Julian would take immense satisfaction in flipping them the bird.

Of course, this was all a rather long-winded way of saying that Julian would only admit that he had made a stupid decision over his own dead body.

Coën re-took his seat among the spectators lining the side of the hall, as Julian took to the middle of it, to face his opponent.

It was one of the more intimidating returning witchers - a large and burly man, with more scars criss-crossing his skin than Julian had ever seen on one person before.

“Well, go on, then, Julian. Sparring too often with the same opponent breeds habit, after all,” Erland said, impassive as he watched Julian adjust his grip on his sword, trying not to seem to obviously nervous. “Habit gets you killed in a fight.”

“I know.”

“Good. You may begin.”

Trying very hard not to think about how his entire School was going to watch him getting his arse kicked for entertainment - and really, when Julian had admitted to liking having an audience, he meant having an audience to _impress_ , not _this_ \- he raised his sword and fell into a ready stance.

“I heard you with old Keldar,” the witcher grunted, before raising his own weapon - a club, for the chance to inflict maximum blunt-force trauma. Excellent. “Not up to your usual standard.”

Rolling his eyes, Julian focused on the weapon in his opponent’s hand. “I’m so sorry to disappoint you twice in one day, then.”

What his opponent’s reaction was, Julian didn’t know, because he was all of a sudden far too preoccupied with dodging the club that came swinging at him. Throwing himself out of the way, Julian hit the ground by the man’s leg, rolling out of his reach, skidding and turning around before fully coming to his feet, to keep his opponent within his line of sight.

The scarred witcher, meanwhile, had barely recovered from his blow, and only turned once Julian had had ample time to prepare his next move. The man was slow, slower than Julian and definitely slower than Erland, which gave him an opening to strike against him, to go on the offensive rather than the defensive. He sprung at the man, and, rather than leading with his sword, he swung it round in his hand so that his grip was back-handed. Planting his feet firmly on the man’s shoulders, Julian pushed off into a backflip, letting his trailing sword cut a slice in the man’s back as he twisted in mid air.

He landed a tad less lightly than he’d meant to, bringing his sword back into its original position, and barely managing to parry a blow from the man’s club as he finally brought it around.

The sheer force behind the blow was something Julian hadn’t expected, and his meagre weight was not enough to hold him in place as the steel of his sword bit into the wood of the club. Were it not for the fact that his blade was now somewhat stuck in his opponent’s weapon, Julian would surely have gone flying.

Whether or not that would be a good thing was debatable, as when the burly witcher recovered from his strike, Julian was yanked away with the club.

 _Shit_.

It seemed he had two options, then, the first being to drop the sword and try to recover it later, but only a fool would let himself be willingly disarmed in such an unfavourable situation.

Instead, he took advantage of the fact that he was apparently light enough to be lifted by the man, and, switching to a two-handed grip, used the hold of his sword as a handhold as he swung his body up, aided by the preexisting momentum of the club’s movement, to deliver a kick, as hard as he could, with the full force of his weight behind it, to the man’s throat.

It was a dirty move, but an effective one - winded, the man dropped his weapon and reeled back, instinct driving him to clutch at his throat.

Julian barely heard Erland’s angry bark of _what the fuck are you doing_ directed towards the scarred man, or at least something similar to that effect, focused as he was on freeing his weapon.

Before the man could recover enough to lunge for his weapon, Julian yanked on his sword in an attempt to drag both it and the club from his reach, and it turned out that the club was a whole lot heavier than he’d assumed; Julian was barely able to move it.

This was no time to focus on the implications of that, however, as Julian yanked again, and finally felt something give. Another pull, and another, and he was just about able to pull his sword free from the club and jump out of the way before the scarred man recovered and lunged for his sword.

Attempting to parry, then, was out of the question - Julian’s only hope was to dodge. Furthermore, he had no hope of actually defeating the man - even his slash at his back had elicited no reaction, and, aside from stabbing him - generally to be avoided in a friendly spar - Julian couldn’t hope to wound him to any actual effect.

Ducking under yet another strike from the club, Julian decided, then, to outlast the man - surely the spectators would quickly get bored of him, and Erland would call another match.

The scarred man was strong, but he was slow - Julian was able to nick his back again, having been able to make a swift pass from behind, before he could recover from his swing. He was, however, also willing to fight with his fists - Julian barely saw the blow coming from the man’s free hand, focused as he was on the club.

Throwing himself gracelessly to the side, the blow, aimed for his midriff, clipped his shoulder, sending him flying. Julian could only think to throw his sword lest he impale himself on it landing before the force of his body coming into contact with the ground sent a shock of pain running through his body. Hearing the clatter of his sword some way away, he pulled himself up and tried to orient himself - the scarred man was to his left. Oh, dear gods, the scarred man was charging at him.

Abandoning his sword completely, because he was _stupid as all hell, apparently_ , Julian ran, too.

Right away from the scarred witcher.

Straight towards the wall.

Unfortunately, but not unsurprisingly, his gambit failed - the witcher was, after all, not a single-minded monster but rather an intelligent hunter - and he heard his opponent cease his charge, not deigning to follow him where he could use the environment to his advantage. Apparently Julian wouldn’t be able to make use of the wall after all - he’d meant lead his pursuer until he was alongside it, only to kick off of it and slip behind him, but that was evidently too transparent.

Oh well, it had been a bit of a shot in the dark to begin with. At least he’d made it closer to his sword.

Lunging for his weapon, Julian caught it neatly in his right hand as he executed a roll across the floor. As soon as he came out of it, he turned, once again opposite his opponent.

There was a significant amount of distance between them, and Julian was the one who charged this time, much to the evident surprise of his opponent. He saw the man ready, lifting his club, and it was that that Julian leapt onto, using it as a leverage point to access the man’s upper torso, thrusting his sword towards his shoulder.

However, the man wasn’t as slow as Julian had counted on.

The moment he realised exactly what the boy was angling for, he’d lifted his club, matching Julian’s trajectory, and hit the boy as he leapt, pushing him up and causing him to overshoot. His blade cut through only empty air, and he sailed over the man’s shoulder, crashing, feet-first, into the ground and skidding a little before his back, too, hit the stone floor.

The air was forced out of Julian’s lungs by the impact, but still he picked himself up off the floor. He was going to be sporting a fair few bruises tomorrow, he could tell.

Shit. His leg, he’d hurt his leg. It wasn’t broken, but he was bleeding - he was bleeding?

Oh, that was brilliant. That was bloody brilliant. He’d cut himself with his own sword whilst he was falling, of course he had. His right leg now sported a decent-sized gash, from which blood was slowly, very slowly, seeping.

Growling, he fell once again into a ready stance, before remembering. _The echinops_. He’d ended up throwing his sword - he couldn’t replicate the throw exactly, it wasn’t appropriate for the circumstance, but he could do something else. Breaking into a run, Julian did his best to ignore the pain throbbing in his leg. His speed only slightly impeded, he raised his sword and once again twisted his grip, but rather than affecting a backhanded grip, he hurled it towards the man like a spear.

His aim, unlike with the unfortunate plant, was not true, and instead of embedding itself in the scarred man’s shoulder like he had hoped, the sword cut a medium-sized gash in his left arm and clatters to the floor behind him, on the other side of the hall, leaving Julian unarmed.

Julian was unarmed.

 _Fuck_.

Julian was unarmed, and he was also a bit closer to his opponent than he would have liked, with only a few strides left between them. This time, the man did not wait for Julian to take the offensive, but rather, lunged at him, club swinging, and Julian caught it in the stomach - he suspected, as he went flying once again, that the man had struck his midriff rather than his chest to avoid breaking his ribs. Small mercies.

Tumbling to the ground once again - and immeasurably grateful that he still hadn’t managed to break anything yet, Julian pulled himself to his feet again, and this time even he could feel how sluggish his movements were. Still, the man had unwittingly given Julian what he needed - more distance - and he broke into a run, charging the man for what was possibly the last time.

He was taking a gamble here, he knew. He was unarmed, and small, and his opponent was built like an ox, wielding a club heavier than Julian could lift, and unaffected by the three cuts Julian had managed to gift him.

Using all his strength, he leapt and pushed off the club - this time with his hands, and not his legs. With barely enough momentum to execute the flip, he managed - barely - to complete the move, legs fastening blindly around the man’s neck as he _squeezed_ with all his might.

_“Is he choking him?”_

A voice from among the spectators reached his ears as Julian pulled his torso up, so as not to provide the man with a target - much harder to punch someone when they were wrapped around your head, after all. He could feel the man begin to struggle for air underneath him, _he did it_ -

And then the scarred man calmly reached up and fastened his own burly hand around Julian’s throat.

Alright, then.

Julian gasped in as much air as possible before the scarred man’s casual choke cut his air supply off completely, and focused. Focused on keeping tension in his thighs, focused on holding his breath, focused on _outlasting_ his opponent, he’d had him longer, after all - before the sound of a club dropping to the floor and a hand locking around Julian’s thigh, prying it from the man’s neck with almost insulting ease because _of course, the man could swing a club likely five times Julian’s weight, of course he could just pull him off like he was nothing_ , and the pressure relaxed on his throat as he went flying across the room _again_.

This time, Julian didn’t climb to his feet.

“I’m surprised it took you this long to beat a child, Bruno.”

Julian didn’t need to open his eyes to hear the shrug that the scarred man - Bruno - gave. “Eh. He was an alright child. Fought a bit dirty.”

“Don’t tell him you were toying with him, you’ll hurt his pride,” Erland said - and was that a joke? Well, this was a fantastic time for the man to grow a sense of humour.

“Knew he wasn’t fighting me for real,” Julian murmured from the floor, head ringing. “Lasted longer than two seconds.”

He heard a snort, at that, but he couldn’t possibly ascertain whose.

“Eh. You did better than I thought,” Bruno’s voice said, and when Julian finally opened his eyes, he could see his hand, outstretched, offered to his beaten opponent.

Julian took it, gladly. “Thanks.”

Limping over back to Coën, he collapsed onto the boy’s lap again.

“Does it need stitches?” Coën asked, and Julian shrugged.

“Dunno. Didn’t check.”

“You’re probably in need of _some_ kind of first aid, if you’re dropping pronouns, and everything. I swear, I spend more time patching you up than anything else. I’m wasted as a witcher,” he sighed theatrically. “I should’ve been a healer.”

“M’fine. Wanna watch the fight.”

Bruno was once again in the ring, and his opponent now was the curly-haired witcher who had brainstormed insults with Julian one night.

Sadly, Coën was having none of it. “When you prove to me that you are in fact capable of making sound decisions, Julian, you can choose whether or not I have a look at the injuries you’ve gotten pulling your latest stupid stunt.”

“I make sound decisions just fine.”

“Yes. Because deciding to fight a man three times your size with five times your strength was a brilliant idea, Julek, truly.”

“I don’t see why-”

This time, Erland himself interrupted the boys. “Julian. Stop protesting and go, the both of you. And for the love of the gods, have Coën stitch your wound before it becomes infected.”

Julian and Coën both nodded their assent, before getting up, Julian trying not to limp too obviously.

“Oh, and boys,” Erland called, almost as an afterthought. “You might want to think about finally getting some actual furniture for that little storage room you don’t think I know you’ve moved into - and don’t deny it, I can smell that you haven’t slept in the dorm for years - because if subtlety’s what you’re going for, you’re fooling no one.”

Coën stared at the man, stunned, and Julian shot him a questioning look over his shoulder.

“Go,” Erland shooed, and they did, leaving the witchers to their fights, as Julian pretended that his leg was fine all the way to their room, where Coën left Julian before swiftly running off and returning with all the equipment necessary to stitch Julian’s wound - a needle, threat, and clean rag for him to bite down on.

“It’s really not that bad,” Julian protested, but Coën silenced him with a look.

“It’s deep enough to need stitches, is what it is, you reckless idiot.”

“You’re awfully mean when I’m injured, you know,” Julian pouted, and Coën shook his head, equal measures fond and exasperated.

“It’s a discouragement tactic. Also, you stress me out a lot when you pull stunts like that, so bear that in mind the next time you decide it would be a great idea to fight an absolute mountain of a man for fun.”

“Aww, you care about me!”

Coën snorted, incredulous. “Of course I care about you, you idiot. Otherwise I’d just let you wander around making every bad decision you could ever make, on purpose. I swear, I’m this close to cuffing us together to keep you in check.”

“You’re so clingy, Coën,” Julian sing-songed, and received a rag to his face for all his troubles as Coën finished threading the needle.

“Bite that.”

Pointedly not biting down on the rag, Julian stuck out his leg for Coën to stitch.

“Are you trying to prove something? Bite the rag, idiot.”

“Mmf.”

After that, Coën settled easily into the rhythm of stitching Julian’s wounds - the practice he’d gotten was evident in the surety with which his needle pierced the skin and threaded through. The small, even stitches holding Julian’s skin closed were a far cry from some of the jagged work visible on some of his other scars - much to Coën’s chagrin, Julian seemed intent on curating a collection before even leaving Kaer Seren.

“You’ll end up looking like Bruno if you keep this up, you know,” Coën muttered.

“Bruno looks cool.”

“Not the point.”

“I know.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be biting down on the rag?”

Julian waved a dismissive hand. “I wanted to see if I’m used to it. And I’m used to it.”

Coën sighed, deeply and emphatically. “Julian, my dearest friend, I hope you know that that’s not a good thing.”

In response, Julian only smirked.

Having draw the needle through Julian’s skin one last time, Coën finished off the stitches and examined his handiwork. The threads were positioned evenly across Julian’s skin, closing the wound efficiently and neatly.

“You give me too much practice,” Coën sighed, taking one last look at his workmanship before meeting Julian’s gaze.

“You’re welcome.”

“It’s still not a good thing.”

“You say that like I shouldn’t get injured at all.”

Coën snorted, sidling up to sit beside Julian, touching his shoulder with his own. “I don’t deny that it’s inevitable that you get injured, but you get injured excessively, because apparently self-restraint is a dirty word in your head.”

Julian, in response, rested his head on his friend’s shoulder. “I like to have fun.”

“They should never have let you near weaponry,” Coën pointed out, not without a hint of mirth in his voice, and Julian snorted.

“They just don’t know what fun is.”

“On the contrary, Erland seems perfectly happy to enable you, for some unknown reason.”

“Because I’m charming and amusing.”

Coën hummed, considering. “That, or he wanted to have you showcase your abysmal form.”

“Or maybe teach you a lesson about footwork.”

“Maybe from Bruno.”

Indignantly, Julian twitched a little as he glanced up at his friend. “Hey!”

“I only meant that to showcase footwork, one does need to keep their feet on the ground.”

As the moon climbed higher into the sky, illuminating the mountains that separated Poviss from the sea, the two boys huddles closer together - and yep, they were definitely going to take Erland’s advice to get some proper damn furniture, because it seemed that Kaer Seren was in a perpetual state of always getting colder.

“Julian,” Coën murmured. “Next time you do something stupid, at least take me with you. If only because I’m amazing and fun, if not entirely for my peace of mind.”

“Sure,” Julian whispered back. “I hope you realise that you’re now obligated to join me in my shenanigans, no take-backs.”

A strangled sound left the older boy’s throat. “Please tell me you don’t have anything planned already.”

“I love you too much to lie to you, Coën,” Julian grinned. “Sorry.”

“Fucking hell, Julek.”

Julian’s sweet smile was far too innocent for Coën to be entirely comfortable with it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeaaaaaahhhhh i need to stop having Coën not be present for the main events (i.e. the bit where I rough Jaskier up) so next chapter it’s DOUBLE shenanigans. Or two chapters from now, because next chapter is a Geralt and Jaskier chapter
> 
> Don’t let his worried big brother-iness fool you, given the opportunity, Coën can and will also be involved in all manner of Shenanigans
> 
> Also i managed to curb my abuse of italics, are you proud?? :D
> 
> Ik this is something of a nothing chapter but i wanted to give the boy a break
> 
> In the form of a beating
> 
> Jaskier canonically has no self-restraint, he loves doing dumb shit and i love making him do dumb shit
> 
> Also I wanted to practice writing fight scenes that last more than 2 seconds, is it okay


	7. Toss a Coin to your Bitch Heir

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fucking _nobles_ and their antics. Jaskier had had enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter... is late!!! And kinda clunky!!! Oh well!!!
> 
> I have a specific date for when I can start on the next chapter and it’s the 18th because that’s when mocks are over, bear with me

Jaskier was, perhaps, not the wisest of men, but even he could tell when something was abjectly stupid and generally not at all worth doing.

Mainly through experience.

“Geralt,” he groaned, for perhaps the thousandth time, because, apparently, it was now his responsibility to talk the man out of accepting all the contracts he absolutely should not, under any circumstance, accept. “Please tell me that you agree with me, that this contract sounds like a terrible, terrible idea.”

He was answered with a dissatisfied grunt.

Travelling with Geralt of fucking Rivia was enlightening in that Jaskier now knew exactly what it felt like to be the voice of reason in a situation, and he most certainly did not enjoy it. And really, you’d think after Blaviken and Beled - in fact, perhaps they should just avoid places beginning with B since they were all so clearly and obviously bad news - that Geralt would somewhat understand that some contracts were best left well enough alone.

Whilst Jaskier was no expert - Geralt had been a witcher far longer than he had, after all, and Jaskier’s approach to taking contracts had been more along the lines of _if it sounds fun and pays well_ than anything else - he did at least have enough experience to be able to tell that accompanying a dishevelled man who was rather obviously some kind of noble wearing a rather pitiful disguise on a three-day journey to Temeria as hired muscle reeked of ulterior motive. Especially given that the man was by no means unprotected, given his entourage of guards he tried to pass off as his _friends_. They were fooling nobody.

Well, not exactly nobody. They were fooling Geralt most admirably - apparently, even though he could track and identify a monster from the barest of clues, when the time came to apply such skills in any kind of social context, the big oaf suddenly turned clueless, every little detail ever to exist flying over his head with impeccable grace.

Jaskier had experienced as much in Beled, anyways, much to his chagrin.

“I think that, regardless of how pleasant the company and the ale has been,” Jaskier said, sending Geralt another meaningful glance that the man remained blissfully oblivious to, “it would perhaps be better for all of us involved - with the possible exception of your eminence, but not your coin purse, which would be undoubtedly better off - if we _did not_ get mixed up in all this shady business of yours and gracefully declined your contract.”

“Shut up, _bard_ ,” the noble scowled. “I want the witcher to deal with whatever monsters we might stumble across on our trip, I’m not paying for _entertainment_.”

“Sorry, but we’re something of a two-for-one deal. You hire the witcher, the bard tags along, you know how it is, so if you don’t find that acceptable then you can kindly take your business elsewhere, and-”

Jaskier found himself being ignored most thoroughly, as the unpleasant nobleman turned away from him and decided to engage with Geralt instead. “Two thousand orens if you take the job, witcher.”

“Done,” Geralt grunted.

Well, he could fuck right off, then, if _that_ was all the thought he gave to Jaskier’s magnanimous and helpful advice. It was like he _wanted_ to end up walking into the stupidest and most avoidable terrible situations he possibly could.

Or maybe it was the two thousand orens. It was, after all, excellent pay - far above what Jaskier would have offered in his situation. Or perhaps this idiot noble had more money than sense - it wouldn’t surprise Jaskier, he was perfectly aware of the lack of common sense that followed the upper classes around, and yes, there was a crack to be made at him in there somewhere - or maybe... just _maybe_ , the man was desperate.

Either way, the man was far more trouble than he’d ever be worth, and Jaskier was sure that there was a rather rude ballad in there for his troubles - possibly somehow less flattering than the one he’d written about old Keldar, even.

“Pleasure doing business with you, witcher,” he smiled, leaving all those present with a newfound understanding of the emotional range a rat could display.

“Hm.”

“That means yes, by the way,” Jaskier snarked, glaring pointedly at Geralt before turning his attention back to the noble. “Fear not, my esteemed sir, I do indeed speak Rivian, for all that they enjoy communicating through grunts and hums. I shall well be available to serve as a translator.”

“Jaskier.”

“Ooh, or, prompt him into using his big-boy words! I can do that, too.”

The noble pinched the bridge of his nose. “That won’t be necessary. Like I said, I have no need for a bard.”

Jaskier grinned. “Sadly for you, Geralt and I are a package deal. You can’t hire one without ostensibly hiring the other.”

“Yes, he can.”

“Maybe for my performances, that’s true,” Jaskier conceded, shooting the witcher another glare. “But unfortunately, where he goes, I also go.”

“Unfortunately,” Geralt huffed, and it would probably have been inaudible had Jaskier not also possessed the hearing of a witcher. Really, the man was just _rude_.

“Very well,” the noble sniffed, clearly displeased, but not willing to argue with a jumped-up bard any longer. “Meet me by the cart in half an hour, at the road towards Temeria.”

With that, the man and his posse got up to leave, wooded benches scraping and screeching across the uneven flagstones of the tavern floor.

Jaskier took the opportunity to inconvenience them a little more. “Wait, my good fellow! What is it that we might call our most esteemed benefactor?”

Scowling, the noble glanced back at them one last time. “Adam,” he bit out, in a tone that left Jaskier and probably half the rest of the tavern certain that the whatever the man’s name was, it was in fact anything _but_ Adam.

With that, he finally turned tail and left the dimly lit tavern, and Jaskier leant conversationally over to Geralt.

“Say, didn’t you kill a bruxa at a stop on the road to Temeria a few years ago? I remember hearing about that.”

Geralt grunted, which Jaskier took as an affirmative.

“Ooh, what was that like? I could make an epic out of it, I’d wager.”

Downing the rest of his ale, Geralt stood, slammed his tankard down on the table, and made towards the door, the only exit to the dimly lit tavern. Ah. He was mad at Jaskier, then. Still, it was hardly the bard’s fault that Geralt was so unable to recognise a bad deal when it slapped him in the face!

Getting up, hurried and not bothering with the rest of his ale, Jaskier did his best to catch up with the witcher without also incurring the eternal wrath of any of the tavern’s other patrons by unwittingly shoving them into their tankards or meals. It was not an easy task, by any means - the advantage granted to him by years of training was somewhat countered by the sizeable lute on his back, but still, Jaskier managed to weave his way through the crowd most admirably.

“Geralt! Geralt, you can’t be mad at me for trying to get you not to take the contract! He’s bad news, and you know what happens when this kind of thing happens, remember Beled?”

“Beled worked out fine.”

“I almost had my throat slit and you ended up not getting paid!”

“Hm.”

“Oh, so that’s it, then? Your desire for coin outweighs your desire for not getting tangled up in another massive shit-show _far_ outside your usual scope? Sorry for trying to save you the trouble, then, my dear friend!”

Geralt, however, was apparently quite finished with the conversation. Not even turning to look at Jaskier, he strode onwards, at a good pace, no doubt hoping that the bard would have to strain to keep up.

Unfortunately for Geralt, Jaskier was quite good at keeping pace with the witcher - secret witcher training notwithstanding, Jaskier wasn’t that much shorter than his companion, despite the illusion provided by his glamour. He could keep up just fine, much to Geralt’s evident chagrin - Jaskier really had gotten better at reading him.

A part of him wanted to confess his suspicions about the nobleman who’d hired Geralt, tell him exactly why he thought this whole thing was a bad idea - but who knew who was listening in at any given time? Jaskier had made that mistake once, and that was enough times for him to learn to never make it again - he’d dabbled in espionage once, mainly because he’d thought it was a good way to earn coin without gaining notoriety, what with his saving his name for his eventual bardic career, and he’d very quickly picked up on the tricks of the trade. One of the more significant ones was _don’t blurt out your suspicions randomly_ , because that was always a brilliant way to get caught.

It had been a fun venture - Jaskier, a witcher coming the continent for minor jobs to gather enough money for that _damn_ glamour, had been offered a hefty sum to utilise his talents to do some spying on a local lord, and, given the pay and the promise of secrecy, and he’d jumped at the chance. Then he’d said the wrong thing at the wrong time and ended up spending a week in a dungeon before he’d managed to break out.

Good times, those had been.

They caught up with _Adam_ and his friends evidently sooner than they’d been expected, and they greeted Geralt with a nod, and Jaskier with a glower - really, it wasn’t like having a free entertainer was such a bad idea, especially given the sour mood that seemed to cling to the most decidedly not merry crew.

“Are you ready to leave?” Adam asked, the impatience seeping into his voice masking enough urgency that Jaskier found himself getting ever more curious as to just whose bad graces the man had managed to land himself in.

“I need to get my horse,” Geralt frowned. “Bard, stay here.”

Great. He was _bard_ -ing him. Really, it wasn’t like Jaskier’s offence had been _that_ great. Sure, he’d tried to get him out of a contract, but it was a bad one, surely even Geralt could see that. A man dressed as your average traveller with five armed _friends_ , with two thousand orens to throw around, needing a witcher for _protection_? Jaskier’s dislike of the contract stretched beyond an instinctual urge to punch Adam’s face in. The whole situation was fishy, and Jaskier did not much like fish.

Even so, Jaskier found himself relenting. Geralt was a frustratingly stubborn man - he had far more willpower than the bard did, at any rate. Figuring it best to go along with this terribly made decision until it came time to unmake it, he decided to engage Adam or perhaps one of his entourage in pleasant conversation.

“So,” he said, casually inserting himself into the midst of men currently glaring at him like he’d personally taken it upon himself to fuck all of their mothers, “lovely weather we’re having, isn’t it?”

Silence met him.

He had been prepared for that, given their earlier impression, but Jaskier had trained for these situations. Having been travelling with Geralt for a while, he’d learnt how to carry a conversation beautifully - at least to his mind. There were some who would find issue with such a statement, especially given the use of the adjective _beautifully_ to describe Jaskier’s latest foray into verbally sticking his foot in his mouth, but it couldn’t be denied that he knew how to talk enough for two people, and probably even more.

“It’s very nice, and grey. Rainy, too, so the paths will be a right nightmare, but that should be fine, what with your cart of excellent quality.”

The cart, which Jaskier took in as he paused, was one of the type used by farmers and the like to haul straw and produce on the roads, and a rather aged one at that. There were many words that one could use to describe it - _rickety, old, rachitic, haphazardly built, ramshackle, flimsy, shit_ \- but it was most certainly not of excellent quality.

“Anyways,” Jaskier continued, even as the scowls directed at him grew ever more fierce and unfriendly, “I do rather think we got off on the wrong foot back there in the tavern - what with your contract being somewhat suspicious and me being my dear friend’s voice of reason that he patently chooses to ignore at any given opportunity - but seeing as how we’re going to be travelling together, it would do to call that... water under the bridge, so to speak, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Fuck off, bard.”

Jaskier met the man with a charming smile. “I feel like this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

Until whoever was chasing Adam caught up to them. Then, of course, Jaskier and Geralt were going to bail on them post-haste.

The thudding of hooves on the dirt road behind them alerted the bard that Geralt and Roach were approaching, and saving him from the utterly miserable tragedy of a conversation that Jaskier was currently struggling through, far sooner than any of the impatient and unfriendly men currently keeping him company would have picked up on.

Thank the gods. Trying to converse with six irritated Geralts at the same time was evidently a task outside of Jaskier’s current remit.

“Witcher!” Adam immediately perked up as Geralt came into view, no doubt eager to set off. “Are you ready to leave?”

Geralt gave a affirmative grunt, at which Adam clapped his hands. “Excellent! Witcher, I assume you shall ride your own mount?”

A stiff nod. Of course Geralt would ride Roach, that much was obvious - it was Jaskier who had no mount. Not that anyone seemed particularly bothered, other than Jaskier himself. Lovely.

“So, should I just ride with you lot, in the cart?”

“You are mistaken if you think you’re coming with us, bard.”

“Well, that’s just a matter of semantics, isn’t it? Am I coming with you? No. Am I travelling with Geralt, who is coming with you? Yes. Are you going to want to travel faster than a bard can manage on foot? Most likely.”

From the unimpressed looks he was getting, Jaskier’s charms were having absolutely no effect.

“Free entertainment?” he tried.

In the end, Geralt came to his rescue, thank the gods. “The bard comes,” he grunted.

Adam’s scowl was sour enough curdle milk as he grudgingly granted Jaskier and Filavandrel’s lute entrance onto his cart, before climbing onto the front of it to drive, one of his men accompanying him. With two in the front and five plus all the supplies in the back, it was a wonder the cart could fit them in the first place.

Perhaps luckily for Adam, who seemed to appreciate the presence of a bard as much as most people appreciated infected wounds, Jaskier soon realised as they set off on the road that he would not, in fact, be able to get his lute out to play properly, given the spatial constraints of the cart. The first few minutes of the journey passed in relative silence, punctuated only by the beating of hooves against the ground, and the alarming creaking of one of the cart’s wheels.

It was not, in fact, Jaskier who struck up a conversation in the end, but one of the men, who started murmuring something that he thought Jaskier couldn’t hear about the bard’s unwanted presence.

Perhaps, if he’s raised the point that his presence on the trip was non-negotiable, they wouldn’t have been so desperate to hire Geralt. Or maybe they would have, if Jaskier’s suspicions were correct. Either way, he was here now.

He was here, and he was feeling very insulted.

After ten minutes of his unwanted company proving to be the most interesting conversation topic, he decided he’d had enough of their unsubtle murmuring.

“You do know I can hear you, right?”

“Good.” To their credit, the whispering men did not look even slightly abashed.

Ouch.

“Don’t you have other, better things to discuss?”

A snort. “Like you’d know intelligent conversation if it bit you in the arse, bard.”

“Ooh, what big, long words you’re using there,” Jaskier retorted, more than a little condescending. “Careful, are you sure you know what they mean?”

“ _Intelligent_ is not so difficult a word,” came another voice, another one of the men.

“Precisely my point, thank you. This one’s not too astute, is he?”

“Speak for yourself, bard. At least he knows where he’s not wanted.”

Jaskier snorted. “Trust me, I’m under no such illusion. I’m very well aware that you’d sooner throw me in a ditch than have me occupying your space, but alas, the next time you hire a witcher, you should perhaps check whether or not he is the one, single witcher on the continent with a travelling companion.”

He was fairly certain that he heard Geralt let out the tiniest of groans at that. Eavesdropper.

“So, what does a bard want with a witcher, anyways? Protection?”

“Inspiration. And who knows, maybe I just like him, too.”

One of the men - the first one to start whispering - let out a laugh at that. “Are you saying you’ve gone and made friends with a _witcher_?”

“Yeah, roundabout.” Jaskier didn’t like the man’s tone. Then again, he didn’t find anything at all about any of Adam’s little group likeable at all, so he deigned to ignore the unpleasant edge to the definitely-not-a-guard-sir-oh-no’s incredulous query.

Another one of the group, the oldest, a balding man with greying hair, whistled at that. “What is the world coming to, eh? Witchers collecting _friends_? Next we’ll be having vampires moving into our towns, I tell you! Word is, witchers don’t have feelings, bard. I’ll doubt he cares about anything but his coin in the end.”

Apparently people who were wrong tended to be very confident about it. It would have amused Jaskier, had he not felt a strong sense of indignation on Geralt’s behalf - _so much for not having feelings_.

“A pity you don’t save that bravado for when you talk about something you actually understand? I understand that that somewhat limits your opportunities, but really. Surely looking like a fool to strangers isn’t quite worth the banter.”

“And you’d know better?”

“Better than you, seeing as how I’ve actually at least _spoken_ to a witcher before.”

Jaskier felt like he was digging himself deeper and deeper into a hole with these men, but he didn’t much care. He’d extended them an olive branch, if they threw it back in his face than that was their problem.

“Hey. Bard.”

Gods, did they want him around or not?

“Yes? My name is Jaskier, by the way, but I’m listening.”

“Play us something, then, if you’re catching a ride with us.”

Raising an eyebrow, the bard gestured pointedly at the truly tiny amount of space remaining in the cramped cart. “And I should get my lute out, how?”

“You’re sitting right at the edge, the neck should just hang over the edge, and the lad beside you can handle a bit of elbow. Come on, bard!”

With a roll of his eyes, Jaskier freed the lute from its case - a difficult task given the circumstances - and hoisted it into position on his lap. “Any requests?”

“Play us something of your own,” commanded the old man. “And please, don’t make it that Toss a Coin shite, play something _worthwhile_.”

Well, that wasn’t how one got into a bard’s good graces after all. Given that he was, in fact, in the habit of immortalising his and now Geralt’s adventures through song, it didn’t seem like to wonderful an idea to try his patience. Still, it would be amusing to try and work five unpleasantly grumpy personages and their spectacularly sour leader into his next work and imagine them seething as he spread it around on his travels.

A song of his own, though? Jaskier’s career as a bard was still in its infancy, but he had written plenty of songs as a witcher, though he had not performed them, due to lack of opportunity. His problem, then, was not if he had something to sing, but which of his songs it should be.

The one about Keldar was out. Not only was it a tad too petty to truly be entertaining for an audience stripped of context, he’d managed to rhyme a truly astonishing amount of things with the man’s name, and switching every instance of the name out with _elder_ , lest Geralt recognised the name, unlikely as that may be, would turn the song far too heavy on the slant rhymes.

Everything he’d ever made up about Coën, too, wasn’t in the running, because an eighteen-almost-nineteen-year-old bard like Jaskier supposedly was would not, under any circumstances, have been able to go around immortalising the exploits of _two_ witchers... unless he’d taken up adventuring and composition in his childhood, which was a bit of a stretch.

Perhaps one of his own exploits? Yes, Jaskier had written songs about his own travels, sue him, but it had been perfectly good material!

No. That was asking for trouble.

“Bard? You gonna play anything for us or not?”

Jolting Jaskier back into the present, he realised that all attention was on him. “Sorry. Trying to think of something that might please you.”

“Got nothing?”

Jaskier scoffed, a picture of incredulity. “As if.”

Not particularly wanting to sing of forgotten muses and heartbreak to the men who enjoyed looking at him like they were picturing exactly what it would be like to snap his neck, Jaskier settled, in the end, on a ballad he’d written alone and sleepless one night, an eternity ago, bitter at the world and one man in particular. It was a tale of cruelty and hatred, and, most importantly, it was vague enough to plausibly be completely fictitious.

_There once lived a man,_

_Held in most high regard_

_So what did he do, then,_

_To anger a bard?_

_The man was a noble,_

_With riches and wealth_

_As we drank every night,_

_We all toasted his health!_

_So courteous and friendly_

_I did trust his intent_

_So when he said “come, boy!”_

_Unfaltering, I went._

_The man was a noble,_

_With songs to his name_

_Praising his deeds and his_

_Likeness, the same_

_The man was a noble_

_Held in high regard_

_Of course it was easy_

_To trick a young bard!_

_When I did go with him_

_With faith in his lie_

_I did not expect him_

_To take me to die_

_I followed him into_

_A torturous pit_

_Abandoned I thought_

_That this surely was it_

_Alone amongst monsters_

_And poisons galore_

_With less to my name_

_That a common man’s whore-_

“That’s a shit ballad, son,” spat the old man, cutting Jaskier off mid-performance.

“Hey! And I was just at the bit where the bard fights a monster, too, do you know how hard it was to get that to rhyme?”

Another one of the men - a boy, rather, scrawny and no more than seventeen years of age - pitched in with his own critique of the ballad. “Why is the main character a bard? If he fights, wouldn’t it make more sense to write a knight?”

Jaskier glared at him, affronted. “You can deliver criticism when you listen to the whole thing.”

“Do you have anything _interesting_ to sing us, bard, or are you really going to try and pass that mewling off as a ballad?”

It was the old man again - Jaskier was beginning to dislike him properly, rather than just in a passing, _I don’t like you but I’m also going to forget about you the moment we part ways_ manner. What was wrong with his ballad? It was one of his first ever good ones, than you very much, and it wasn’t always that he performed such a personal work! Adam’s posse had absolutely no respect for music.

“What do you want to hear, then?” the bard grumbled, trying to appear less miffed than he actually was.

“Something _good_.”

“Of course, of course, though, could you be a _little_ more vague, though, perhaps? I don’t think your request quite covers every possible song in existence.”

The old man snorted. “Something lively. Something that’s not filled with excessive preening and posturing. Something that’s not about how intelligent and wily you imagine yourself to be.”

“The song is _fictitious_ , old man, that means it’s _made up_. It’s not about a real event involving real people. It’s in the first person as a _stylistic choice_.”

“We all know what you were going for, bard.”

He uttered this with all the confidence of a man who had immediately and self-assuredly leapt to the wrong conclusion.

Jaskier smirked at him. “If you’re curious, the bard ends up getting mauled and losing a hand, so he can never play again in the end. Because he’s a bard. And it was a monster. And he never did get revenge on the noble.”

“Sure, of course that’s what happened.”

“I could finish the ballad for you if you like, if you’re not convinced.”

The old man waved a hand. “I’d rather spare my ears.”

At that moment, Jaskier debated finishing it just to spite him, but thought twice about pissing off the men who had let him travel along with them only because Geralt had told him to. He doubted they’d have any qualms about kicking him off the cart, and Jaskier very emphatically did not want to end up _walking_ to Temeria.

Instead, he decided to play every single drinking song he’d ever come up with, and he had a rather wide arsenal of those. They’d been a great hit over winters at Kaer Seren, even if everyone always forgot all the words by the morning.

The old man, at least, seemed mollified, and a tad bit amused at Jaskier’s repertoire.

It was such a shame they wouldn’t be meeting again - Jaskier would have loved to bear witness to his reception of his next composition, featuring an unbearably contrarian and cantankerous old bastard of a man.

They made camp late at night, far past the time that Jaskier and Geralt would have ordinarily, when the moon had almost reached its zenith. Grumbling and groaning as they unloaded both themselves and their equipment from the cart, a quiet bustle overtook the group, and Jaskier went over to where Geralt sat by his own fire, markedly separate from their benefactor’s little encampment.

“So, how was your journey, all... not squished between people who want to throw you in a ditch?”

Geralt grunted.

“I’m assuming that means that it was lovely and peaceful.”

“I heard your singing.”

Jaskier brightened, fixing his full attention on the witcher. “And?”

“I didn’t know you had so many songs. Especially not drinking songs.”

Snorting, the bard waved a hand dismissively. “My family was full of alcoholics.”

“Was.”

Did Geralt... actually care about Jaskier’s family? The bard hid a smile. He’d truly come so far. Then again, maybe he was just curious, but a start was a start.

“Yeah, I... haven’t actually seen them in a while.”

This was true. It had been quite a few years ago that Jaskier had last wintered at Kaer Seren, finding himself a tad too caught up on his quest for a glamour. Whoops. He really should go back at some point.

“Where are you from?” Geralt interrupted his musings with yet another question.

“Metinna,” Jaskier lied easily.

“Metinna. Yet your accent sounds more northern.”

“Eh, I lived in Kovir for a while as a kid.”

Technically true. He had lived in Kovir... or was it Poviss? Whichever one of the two united kingdoms Kaer Seren technically fell in, he wasn’t sure. As far as he knew, nobody had been too interested in mapping the political boundaries of a mountain range in a witcher school. Either way, he’d lived there for a while as a kid. And an adult. In fact, the only time he’d spent not living in Kovir - or, more specifically, a keep barely in Kovir, where the mountains met the sea - was the six years he’d lived in Lettenhove and his travels as a witcher and, later, a bard.

On the other hand, he’d liked Metinna. The people weren’t too vitriolic and the food was good.

“What about you?” Jaskier asked. “Are you actually from Rivia?”

It was interesting - Jaskier knew Kaer Morhen was in Kaedwen, but Geralt’s accent was all Rivia. By contrast, Jaskier knew that he spoke with a mixture of his own accent from Lettenhove and Coën’s Poviss intonation - had Geralt been older, then, when he was made a witcher? Or was the Rivian accent simply so stubborn?

“Yes,” Geralt grunted, and that was that. In all honesty, Jaskier felt a little jealous that Jaskier had such a coherent sense of identity. The bard was by no means Koviri, but he’d rather die before announcing himself to be of _fucking_ Lettenhove, or Redania in general.

It was rather curious, to him, that Geralt would consider himself to be of Rivia, still.

“You’re quiet.”

“Composing, or trying to,” Jaskier said, and yeah, okay, he felt a little bit bad for lying to Geralt - especially since he was making an attempt at conversing with Jaskier - but his cover was important - he hadn’t spent years worth of savings on his glamour just so that the worst detective he knew could figure him out. “You should hurry up and fight something, because at the moment, all I’ve got is that the people who hired us are rude.”

Geralt gave Jaskier a look, which the bard took to mean that Geralt was not amused. Pity.

They fell into a silence unusual for them, but it was a comfortable one - the silence of two men deep in their own thoughts, rather than the unnatural quiet that settled over men who wanted to converse but couldn’t. The night was punctuated only by the crackling of the fire and the distant conversations of Adam and his men, and it was, Jaskier would admit, rather nice. Despite his fondness for idle chatter, the still quiet was a welcome break after a long period of singing.

So of _course_ the damn fleder had to launch itself down from the boughs of the trees around them at that very moment.

Jaskier barely had time to curse as he rolled out of the way, catching Geralt drawing his silver sword out of the corner of his eye as the fleder landed where Jaskier had been sat a second ago.

Thank fuck for his quick reflexes.

Pulling his currently highly useless and vaguely rusted dagger - the one he’d liberated from the mortician in Beled - from his boot, he got to his feet and turned to face the fleder.

He wasn’t about to fight it, not in front of witnesses, in front of Geralt, but he was damned if he was going to give the damn lesser vampire a chance to get the drop on him. He liked his flesh un-mauled, thank you very much

Geralt, on the other hand, was finally earning his keep. Raising his sword, he assumed a ready stance only to launch himself at the fleder a moment later.

He swung his sword in a wide arc, aiming for the fleder’s neck, but the creature saw his strike coming soon enough to move to dodge it, and what would have been a fatal blow instead caught its arm rather than its neck, cutting a deep gash in its flesh but leaving it alive. Blood splattered to the forest floor.

Emitting a loud screech, the fleder swiped at Geralt with its uninjured arm, which the witcher parried with his silver blade. The vampire’s momentum was enough that the impact severed its limb, and Geralt took advantage of the opening provided to take another swing at the fleder’s neck, this time striking true. The silver sword embedded itself in the creature’s flesh, sinking almost the whole way through and near decapitating it before the resistance provided by the fleder’s muscle and bone halted the silver.

With a grunt, Geralt’s left hand grabbed the fleder’s shoulder and _pulled_ , and his sword sliced through its neck completely, head falling gracelessly to the floor as blood spilled like wine, overflowing from a cup, from the stump Geralt had created.

Quick, mostly clean, and efficient.

The men’s chatter and bustle had stopped, as they paused in whatever they had been doing to witness Geralt dispatch with the fleder.

“I’m impressed, witcher,” Adam said, breaking the silence. “It seems you are as efficient as they say you are.”

Geralt, as customary, answered him with a grunt.

“Is that your weapon, bard?” their benefactor continued, turning his attention to Jaskier. “It’s shit.”

“I stole it from a murderer.”

Adam snorted and raised his eyebrows.

“She almost slit my throat with it,” Jaskier continued, and Adam chuckled, though it was a tad too harsh to seem wholly good-natured.

“How’d you live through it, then?”

Jaskier shrugged. “She was, what, yay-high? And built like a twig, too. It wasn’t very hard.”

“Is that so,” Adam mused. “Anyways, we’ve got leftover food we can share, so there’s no need to go hunting tonight. Come, the two of you, eat with us.”

After moving their personal spot a little further away from all the fleder blood, the witchers did indeed join the rest of their group to eat. Apparently, one of the things that had been taking up so much space in the little cart was a sack filled with smoked fish. Jaskier wasn’t even going to ask. Did none of Adam’s guard know how to hunt?

Either way, Jaskier wasn’t going to complain about the free food, even if he did harbour a dislike for fish. He was all too happy to relieve Adam of his resources.

“So, Temeria,” Jaskier started, having gotten bored of seeing how obnoxiously he could nibble of his fish. “Nice place. How come you’re headed there?”

One of the men - a bearded fellow, the one who’d first started whispering in the cart - shot him a glare, but Adam waved him off. “Why does anyone go anywhere? I have business there.”

“What kind of business, if you don’t mind me inquiring?”

“I do mind, actually, bard, but I’ll tell you. I’ve an old friend there who owes me a favour - quite a few, actually, of both old friends and favours - and I’m cashing it in, which I can’t do from a kingdom away.”

Jaskier hummed. “Where are you coming from, then? Lyria? Rivia?”

“Aedirn,” Adam huffed. “We were staying with another friend of ours for a while. And yourself?”

“Oh, we met a good few months ago in Dol Blathanna, and we travelled south for a while, but then we turned around and headed for Aedirn like yourselves.”

“Interesting,” said the noble, in a bored tone. “Where are you headed?”

Jaskier shrugged, not particularly invested in keeping the awkward conversation interesting, just alive. “Kaedwen, maybe?”

“Not Redania?”

At this, Jaskier turned and nudged Geralt. “Where are we heading, after this, then?”

Geralt grunted. “North.”

“Informative,” Adam said dryly. “So, tell me, how does a witcher end up acquiring a personal bard?”

“No idea. He showed up and started following me.”

“Hey! We’re friends.”

The old man guffawed. “What conflicting accounts!”

“I apologise on behalf of Geralt’s dishonesty, then,” Jaskier said, grandly. “He’s so unused to having a friend that he doesn’t dare admit it.”

Adam chortled at that, and Jaskier couldn’t help but notice that the man had a very nasty laugh.

They got up early in the morning the next day, at the crack of dawn - Adam was very clearly not in the business of wasting time. He hurried his men along as they packed up all their belongings, not bothering to help them - obvious noble - and they were ready for departure in record time. Evidently whatever Adam wanted to do in Temeria, it was very time-sensitive.

Jaskier had kept a curious eye and ear out, but, despite Adam’s false urgency and the fact that a noble had deigned to take up a false identity to travel in the first place, he hadn't actually managed to give Jaskier any kind of clue that he might be being followed or hunted, strangely enough. Nothing in his conversations or demeanour had implied such - even those that Jaskier had not been meant to hear - and Adam was by no means a good actor.

Strange.

The thought that Adam was, perhaps, simply a paranoid travelling noble didn’t quite sit right with Jaskier. The man was up to _something_ , damn it, and Jaskier could only hope his scheming didn’t end up screwing him and Geralt over.

Still, he had little time to muse, as the men he was once again unfortunately packed in the midst of started demanding more entertainment. So much for not needing a fucking bard, then, if they planned to sing Jaskier hoarse anyways. He should demand payment for this.

“Can I sing _Toss a Coin_ , then?”

“Not on your life, bard. The damn song’s spreading like a fucking disease and I’d like to go at least a week without hearing it again,” the old man grunted.

“What do you want from me, then? You don’t want the drinking songs, you heard them yesterday, you don’t want my ballads, because you don’t like them, but you do want something I’ve written... You’ve slightly run me out of options, here!”

The old man grunted. “Sing something lively, then. Fuck if I know what.”

Yep, he was definitely not going to flatter the old man if this journey proved interesting enough to immortalise.

He ended up singing jaunty folk songs and assorted ditties throughout the morning, and in the end, they started to grate on his nerves, too, but the old man seemed mollified.

However, it did seem that the rest of the motley crew shared Jaskier’s opinion, as they desperately attempted to engage him in conversation between every song - something that he was most grateful for. If he never heard another jaunty little folk song, it would be too soon.

Oddly enough, in between the lifeless performances that the old man demanded, it turned out that the men were rather good conversationalists. The bearded man turned out to be extremely well-read, and they spent a while discussing different poets - poets that Jaskier had mainly only heard of in passing, what with his circumstances - but it turned out that the bearded man needed very little prompting, and was more than happy to carry the conversation himself. The boy turned out to have an extensive knowledge of botany - his mother had been a gardener - and another one of the guard, a surly, stubbly, man, seemed all too willing to talk for hours about all the different routes one could take through the Brokilon forest without getting killed.

The day passed in pleasant conversation, and the tension that had permeated the air - at least from Jaskier’s perspective - had all but dissipated.

It was almost... nice.

Naturally, then, that was the moment that an arrow - crossbow bolt? No, definitely an arrow - would choose to embed itself in Jaskier’s left shoulder.

 _Fuck_.

He allowed himself to cry out, to alert every member of the group to the attack, and in the blink of an eye, the whole entourage was armed to the teeth and ready to fight.

The smug satisfaction of being right was at once curbed when the old man’s crossbow bolt hit a target and revealed an _assassin_.

From the smell of it, the assassin wasn’t alone. The scent was faint, likely masked - of course they’d know that Adam had hired a witcher, if they knew his plans well enough to ambush him - but once Jaskier knew what to look for, it was there. Three in the shadows of the trees, two more up in the branches.

Jaskier was definitely sitting this one out, if not for the sake of his cover than for the sake of his poor _shoulder_.

“Fuck!” Geralt’s shout as he no doubt realised exactly why he’d been hired in the first place and what the situation was served as the signal for the fight to start.

Shoving the lute as well as himself down flat against the boards of the cart, Jaskier did his best to stay out of sight, ignoring the pulsing pain in his shoulder. With any luck, they’d mistake him for a corpse rather than an easy target.

Even so, Jaskier slid the rusty dagger from his boot. It was always good to be armed.

His position made for a poor vantage point, but he could make out the fight nonetheless. The old man fired another crossbow bolt into a treetop assassin, who’d given his position away by loosing an arrow at Geralt, which he had deflected easily with his steel sword. A dagger-wielding man had sprung at the boy, engaging him in a knife fight of spectacular speed, and the bearded man drove his sword through the throat of another assassin who’d leapt at Adam with a pair of short swords.

Jaskier was stealing those when the others were done. Gods, he missed his short swords.

The last treetop assassin, armed with a crossbow rather than an arrow like his counterparts, loosed a bolt at the old man, which embedded itself neatly in his forehead, signifying the moment of impact with a spray of red.

There went their only ranged fighter.

Evidently, he was not the only one to realise this, as the bearded man leapt for the fallen crossbow, getting a bolt to his arm for all his trouble. Short of ammunition, he pulled the bolt that had hit his older comrade from his skull, and fired it right back at the assassin.

Meanwhile, the boy had lost to the dagger-wielding assassin - evidenced by the neat red gash that had been sliced in his throat, but the surly man quickly leapt to engage him.

Wait. There had been six assassins. Four were dead. One was still fighting.

Then one was-

Jaskier swore under his breath as the sixth assassin landed, light as a cat, in the cart.

Slashing that the man’s ankles with his shitty dagger, Jaskier sprung as best as he could from his hiding place.

His blade bit empty air, as the assassin leapt neatly out of the way, with not a moment’s surprise or hesitation.

Fuck, _fuck_. Jaskier needed to lead the man into the fray, make him Geralt’s or someone else’s business, and _fast_.

The assassin’s weapon of choice was, evidently, also a dagger - no, a pair of daggers. This was to be a close quarters fight, then, and that meant that Jaskier’s pierced shoulder was suddenly a bigger disadvantage than it would have been a minute ago. He didn’t much fancy his odds, here.

So he’d have to cheat.

The assassin wasted no time, slashing at Jaskier’s left side, which the bard parried with his own blade and brought his knee up to sink into the assassin’s stomach.

His opponent, however, noticed his move before he executed it, and twisted out of the way. Taking advantage of the moment, Jaskier rotated his own blade, looping it around the dagger he’d parried a moment earlier and continuing the movement to twist it out of his opponent’s grasp entirely, grabbing the dagger out of the air with his left hand as it fell.

Striking again the moment he had recovered, the assassin slashed at Jaskier from above, and the bard parried with both blades, crossing them diagonally and catching the incoming attack between them.

Then, he leant backwards and _pulled_.

Shoulder twanging in protest, and the arrow moving uncomfortably in his shoulder, he rolled backwards into the thicket, pulling his opponent with him. The moment they were out of sight, Jaskier dropped his daggers, and brought his fingers up into a familiar shape, a familiar sign, and cast Axii.

It was somewhat satisfying to see his gambit work, seeing the assassin stumble into the fray himself.

Less satisfying was the realisation that the only two left standing were Geralt and Adam, who was looking far worse for wear, a large gash across his right arm whose bleeding he was desperately trying to staunch.

Upon catching sight of the final assassin, Geralt did away with him with a simple thrust, piercing the man’s rib cage in a single fluid move.

Well, shit.

“Jaskier!” Geralt called, no doubt looking around for the bard.

“Here,” Jaskier called from the thicket, not bothering to get up. He could see how far through his shoulder his roll had pushed the arrow, and the sight of almost the full length of an arrow covered in his blood poking through him was disconcerting, to say the least.

“Jaskier,” the witcher repeated, as his face appeared above Jaskier’s sprawled on his back as he was.

“Hey, Geralt. Hi. Ow. That hurts.”

“Shit.” The witcher’s grip was gentle as he gingerly lifted the fallen bard from the thicket, and Jaskier would have appreciated it a lot more if the arrow wasn’t currently jostling uncomfortably in his shoulder.

Really, Geralt was always so nice when he was injured. He should really do it more often.

The witcher placed him down in the cart, softly, and got to work on the arrow.

Wait. Did the glamour also provide the illusion of the correct, human amount of bleeding? Of all the details that he’d given when having it made, that wasn’t something he’d specified. Oh, sure, he could come up with a system that showed wounds and scabs, but hid whatever scars he collected when they healed, but he couldn’t remember to specify that the glamour should also _bleed him right_.

Fuck.

His panic must have shown on his face, because Geralt patted his uninjured shoulder in a reassuring, if awkward, gesture.

“Don’t worry, Jaskier,” he rumbled, but his eyes were worried. Other than witcher potions, a limited amount of thread and a needle, and the odd few bandages, they had no medical supplies, and the bard couldn’t very well just go for the bloody potions.

He needed a solution, and fast, before Geralt realised he wasn’t bleeding nearly as much as he should have been - Jaskier rather thought that the reason he had not yet done so was the smearing caused by him agitating the wound during the fight.

“Geralt!” Jaskier gasped, struck by inspiration. “Geralt, cauterise the wound!”

“What?”

“Burn it shut, fuck!”

Geralt’s brow furrowed, and he immediately got to work, utilising an Igni to light a fire to heat an unbloodied blade in a rather dramatic fashion, before quickly removing the arrow and using the flat of the blade to burn the wound shut. Jaskier hissed, more at the acrid stench of burnt flesh than anything else.

“Are you sure this will work?” Geralt grunted, as he flipped Jaskier around to cauterise the entry wound, too.

On a normal human being? Not a fucking chance. On a witcher? Jaskier had shrugged off arrow wounds before, and he was pretty sure Geralt had, too. He’d be fine. Probably.

Nodding, Jaskier tensed as the burning blade was pressed to his shoulder once more.

“Are you alright?”

Geralt of fucking Rivia, enquiring after his health? Yep, Jaskier _really_ needed to get injured more often.

“I’m grand,” he grinned, giving the witcher a double thumbs-up and wincing.

“Good.”

Satisfied that Jaskier was no longer on the verge of bleeding out, the White Wolf turned his attention to Adam.

Oh, this was going to be _fun_.

“Is this why you hired me?”

The man visibly paled. “Uh- I- Not specifically, really, I just... Well, I knew I was being tracked and I wanted a deterrent. I didn’t know that they’d do... this!”

“I am a witcher,” Geralt said, voice low. “And I hunt monsters. I’m not a bodyguard for you to hire.”

Adam flinched. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry for the deception, but it was necessary - they would have killed me!”

“Your politics are none of my business. Pay me now, and you’ll go to Temeria alone. I’ve no desire to be involved in... whatever this is any further.”

“Of course,” Adam said, regaining some of his composure, and handing over the hefty coin pouch.

Jaskier, meanwhile, had slipped off to collect his daggers - both the one from Beled and the one he’d liberated from the assassin, which was of much higher quality. The mortician’s weapon was dull, rusty in some places, and carried more chips than Jaskier could count, but the assassin’s weapon was shiny and well looked-after.

He’d keep them both, he decided. As a reminder of all the lovely people in the world that wanted to kill him.

Rejoining Adam and Geralt, Jaskier remembered the short swords he’d wanted and picked them up, too, earning Geralt’s incredulity.

“What? They look cool,” he defended, trying his best to get the scabbards off the dead man. “Besides, he’s not got any use for them anymore, he’s a bit too dead for that.”

“You’re remarkably comfortable with death, for a bard.”

Jaskier shrugged. “People die all the time.”

In the end, Adam piled the corpses in the cart, intending to give his men a proper burial upon reaching Temeria, and, after scavenging their weaponry, the assassins were buried properly by the side of the road so as not to attract ghouls or the like.

“Out of interest, whose business are you out here on?” Jaskier asked as the man prepared to leave them for Temeria.

“None of yours,” he snorted.

“It is kind of our business, seeing as you almost got us killed.”

Adam glowered at them, most fiercely. “Someone in Kerack.”

Then, without a second glance, he mounted the cart and started off, not even a goodbye for the two men he so readily inconvenienced.

That was rather rude of him.

“So,” Jaskier said, breaking the silence, and trying not to focus too much on the stench of blood, thick in the air. “Where to?”

“Kaedwen,” Geralt grunted, and right, winter was approaching. He no doubt wanted to make it back to Kaer Morhen to meet with all his Wolf friends, which would leave Jaskier alone for a whole season, unless he wanted to run back to Kaer Seren... which he actually didn’t, not now that he finally had the opportunity to further his bardic career. The places he’d go, the songs he would sing...

“Right, then,” Jaskier grinned, and started down the road, his new short swords looking particularly out of place paired with his fancy doublet. “Kaedwen it is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Adam will return. With his real name :D
> 
> It gets a bit cliche if I keep saying it but yeah this chapter is... not my best. I don’t know how it holds up objectively but
> 
> I had an idea for how I wanted it to be and this.... is not it :(
> 
> But if it had been it, it would have been twice as long, which is why it’s not it
> 
> I hope you enjoyed my subpar poetry and murder of unnamed men
> 
> And the liberties taken with basically everything, from the signs to how to fuckin cauterise a wound properly
> 
> Thank you for all the kind comments and kudos!!! :D
> 
> Also there’s a reference in here. It worked out a lot better for Jaskier than it did in the thing I’m referencing


	8. The Witcher and the Lute

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was, perhaps, one of the more fun things that a witcher could end up surprised with, a lute, even if it required a certain amount of expertise to play that no witcher possessed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I talk about hating my writing a lot (i don’t, it’s just the mortifying ordeal of being known) but I would actually, seriously like to apologise for this one. It simply did not want to get written, at all - and it’s been two bloody weeks since mocks! I restarted it five or six times, but in the end I realised that this was taking way too long and I needed to post _something_. It’s not so much the chapter as the execution - this chapter is ridiculously dialogue heavy and I hate that. I hope it’s not too obtrusive.
> 
> This is the last time I ever have four characters share extended screentime though. Whoops.
> 
> The explanation for the ocs is that if they’re not gonna give us enough canon Griffins then I’ll have to do it myself, and I simply cannot fucking imagine Erland with a fucking lute. My apologies, I didn’t mean to write so damn much about them :(.
> 
> Next chapter, it’s back to our regularly scheduled programming of fairly competently written content :D
> 
> Enjoy :)

The room was large and well-lit, the orange glow of the torches flickering in the breeze. It was a draughty place, but that worked out well, in the end - the chamber was, after all, used for training, and nobody particularly wanted to lounge in the reek of sweat long after whoever had been using it had left. Indeed, had it not been for the draught, it was likely that the odours left by hundreds of long-dead students would still permeate the room, and that would have been a nightmare and a half for everyone.

It was currently occupied by the two students of Kaer Seren, the two pupils of a school vastly reduced in capacity. They were caught up in a spar, under the watchful eyes of their teacher.

Steel met steel in a sluggish dance, the tired finality of two boys at the end of the day, who had been training since the crack of dawn, evident in their movements.

Coën’s sword slashed down through the air, and Julian raised his own blade to meet it, halting the blow a scant two finger-widths away from his face.

That was a little bit too close for comfort.

He withdrew his blade from where they had been locked, side-stepping neatly to the right and sliding his sword out from under Coën’s, and turning the motion into a slash at his friend’s calf that Coën blocked with one swift movement, bringing his sword down to be parallel to his leg.

He didn’t let their blades lock again - as he caught Julian’s strike, he pushed against it, forcing Julian’s sword-arm away, and leaving him wide open.

“Julian, if you ever leave such a wide opening in front of me again, you’re mucking out the stables for the rest of the winter,” Erland’s deep voice cut into the fight, as Julian pivoted away, out of Coën’s range, to recover his stance.

Choosing not to retort - Julian valued his free time, after all - he instead slashed at Coën’s side, a strike which was easily parried by the older boy, and this time, when he followed it up with a thrust aimed towards Julian’s chest, he countered it easily with his own blade, moving back a minute amount.

From there, the fight sped up, the movements of both boys becoming faster and more fluid. Every strike was countered, every parry perfectly in place, and Erland raised an eyebrow at them.

“One of you, please try to get the upper hand over the other. It’s not a dance, it’s a spar, and you’re not a pair of third-rate actors trying to put on a performance.”

Julian countered a diagonal downwards slash from Coën, meeting the steel of his friend’s sword with his own perpendicular blade a comfortable distance from his shoulder.

“I don’t know, I think this is going well.”

“It’s a sword fight,” Erland snorted. “Not a battle of endurance.”

“Can’t it be both?”

Recovering from the earlier blow, Julian pulled his blade from the parry and turned the movement into an upwards slash, that Coën dodged rather than parried, unfortunate as the angle was. Taking advantage of the split-second in which he was completely out of Julian’s range, he stepped smoothly behind him and pushed his blade forwards in a thrust, tapping his back neatly as Julian tried in vain to reach him with his sword.

He turned to look at Coën with betrayal in his eyes, as his friend took the victory.

“I win.”

“That’s not fair! Your arms are far longer than mine!”

Coën grinned. “That sounds like a you problem, unless you resolve only to fight things that are smaller than you.”

“Monsters don’t understand the concept of _cheating_ , though, Coën, but you do!”

Before Erland could interrupt the bickering that had broken out among the two, another witcher entered the room, presumably to bear witness to their unenthusiastic sparring. It was the curly-haired witcher - and he did have the most magnificent curls, cascading down his back, almost to his waist, and surely a significant inconvenience in a fight - who had brainstormed insults with Julian that one night.

Belatedly, he found himself realising that he probably should have actually learnt the man’s name, as the witcher in question turned to Erland.

“Mind if I watch?”

“Not at all,” Erland said, gesturing for the man to sit. “Though I am curious as to why you aren’t currently in the kitchen. Isn’t it your turn this night?”

The curly-haired witcher huffed. “Henrik has politely requested my absence.”

“I can’t quite imagine him ever sending _you_ away, Rook.”

“He sings quite a different tune when he’s cooking. I handed him the salt we got in Novigrad instead of the packet from Skellige, and he asked if I was trying to poison him.”

“Is there a difference between the two?” Erland queried, earning a shake of the head from Rook, before turning to Julian and Coën. “The two of you, another match. Rook came to watch your sparring, not to discuss his culinary ventures.”

Julian frowned. “Really? Because it sounded more like he was here to discuss his culinary ventures, actually, seeing how he-”

“Julian, the longer you dawdle, the longer you stay. Go again, and don’t dodge anything you can parry.”

Huffing a discontented sigh, he raised his sword and fell into a familiar stance. The end of the day was always a slog - Julian didn’t know anyone who would actually spar properly after a day of strenuous activity and mind-numbingly dreary lessons. At the end of the day, all anyone could conceivably want was a nice, hot meal and possibly also a bath, if it was a particularly good day, and then to collapse into bed and finally rest. Witcher training was tiring, damn it, and Julian was tired.

He raised his sword and struck at Coën, a simple downwards slash that his friend parried easily, but it was sufficient enough to start the spar.

Julian recovered the moment their swords met, bringing his weapon round in an arc and aimed a lateral blow at Coën’s waist, which was blocked fluidly with a twist of his sword.

This wouldn’t do. They were matched again.

Coën had the advantage of reach over Julian - being a few years older and consequently taller, he was able to hit Julian while he was outside the younger boy’s range. That was, in Julian’s humble opinion, highly unfair and rather rude of life. It skewed the odds out of his favour most annoyingly.

He brought his sword up, slashing at Coën’s shoulder from above, trying to keep him on the defensive, where he couldn’t take advantage of his superior reach. Coën parried the strike clumsily - the manoeuvre to bring the sword from where it had been his side to meet the blow awkward and difficult.

Pressing his advantage, Julian quickly aimed a slash at Coën’s midriff, which he met a tad more easily, but Julian wasn’t giving him a second to take the offensive. He slashed low, then high, then low, Coën meeting his sword with his own each time, not giving Julian a proper opening.

This was somewhat less than ideal. Whilst Julian’s primary goal was to keep Coën on the defensive, battles of endurance were not his preferred modus operandi. Far from it, in fact - it was far too drawn-out and exhausting a method, in his opinion. Still, he needed to prevent Coën from being able to press his advantage, which meant that he’d have to be patient and wait for an opening whilst maintaining a steady offence.

Ideally, he would have played to his own strengths - his speed and agility - but, as Erland often intoned, over-reliance on one specific tactic was to be avoided, not to mention that a witcher was expected to excel in all kinds of combat, and Julian... Julian was many things, but substandard was not one of them.

So he pressed the frontal offence. His sword clashed with Coën’s, again and again in a frenzied dance, feet not quite scuffing the floor as they circled the room.

Their blades met above Coën’s left shoulder, then by his knee, and again near his midriff. Julian’s sword moved fast, darting between each attack, not letting up, and Coën met each strike with a neat parry, their blades clashing only briefly before moving on to the next attack.

Sweat beaded on Julian’s brow. If they had to spar again after this, he was going to scream.

His sword moved swiftly and fluidly, cutting gracefully through the air as he moved the blade up to slash at Coën’s arm, and that was his mistake.

The strike was more of a cut, and it was far enough to Coën’s right that he didn’t need to parry, and Julian knew he had lost the moment Coën stepped to the left and out of his range, tapping the side of his neck with his sword in the split second of an opening that Julian had provided.

“Fuck off, Coën.”

Coën smiled sweetly at him. “You did admirably well.”

“Shove it,” Julian retorted, sticking his tongue out in a petulant manner, though there was no real anger behind his words.

Erland stood from where he had been seated, regarding the pair with a steely gaze.

“That was better,” he acquiesced. “But again, the aim is to gain the upper hand against your opponent. If you settle into a cooperative rhythm, you’re doing it wrong. For now, though, we’ll leave it at that. Rook, do you have anything to add?”

The witcher shook his curly head. “Nothing of interest.”

“Then we should be going. Undoubtedly, dinner is soon to be ready, and I don’t fancy our odds of getting any if we leave it all in the hands of a dozen witchers.”

Shoving his sword almost carelessly back into the rack, Julian followed the older witchers as they filed out of the door, followed closely by Coën.

“You could have kicked me,” he said, almost nonchalantly. “Or tripped me.”

Julian snorted. “What, and give Erland another reason to have a go at me? _You cannot rely so much on fighting dirty, Julian, what if the monsters you fight have an unparalleled sense of honour and take great offence to it_?”

Coën snorted.

“If you rely too much on underhanded tactics, you will not cement your skills solidly enough, Julian,” Erland interrupted from down the hall, not looking back as he chastised the boy.

“Convenient how you always forget about witcher hearing until it comes time to shush me, isn’t it, Julek?”

Julian scowled. “At least I remember he has it _sometimes_. That’s far more than you ever do.”

“And yet you remain notoriously terrible at keeping anything a secret from him.”

“That’s not true!”

Smirking, Coën flicked Julian’s ear. “Then how, pray tell, did he catch wind of your inane scheme to shovel horse shit into the library in the name of your and Keldar’s supposed feud? Because it wasn’t through me, I’ll tell you that much.”

Julian’s cheeks would surely have gone bright pink, had his circulation allowed for it. As it was, he simply gave Coën a light punch to the arm, trying - and failing - to not betray his embarrassment. “If I didn’t like you so much, I’d have kicked you in the throat.”

“As if you could reach, you pipsqueak.”

“Hey!”

They bickered good-naturedly the rest of the way, earning a few faint grins from Rook, who was evidently using them as a source of entertainment.

He couldn’t say he blamed him. Julian was well-known for his theatrics... Or at least, he liked to imagine he was.

The atrium they shared their meals in was filled already, the only other absentees being Keldar, no doubt still mooching around in his damn library, and whoever it was that was in charge of the food that night - Henrik, it was Henrik, the red-headed witcher. The table they all sat at was long, benches lining it, and Erland took his seat at the far end, whilst Julian, Coën, and Rook slid into place nearer the other end of the table.

Henrik entered not long after, bearing decent-smelling food - a luxury at Kaer Seren. Witchers did not make good cooks.

Julian hadn’t really expected to get too close to any of the witchers that had come to winter - there were leagues of difference between them, after all, between a boy who was hardly halfway through the trials, and a seasoned witcher who had been walking the path for many years. Sure, they were amicable, exchanging the occasional few jokes and barbs, but for the most part, Julian and Coën kept to themselves, not really getting all that well acquainted with any of the other witchers. That was for after they finished the Trials.

There was, however, an exception to this trend.

Henrik, who had been yelled at for poor technique during every spar he’d had that winter, was one of the more outgoing witchers that had come to winter at Kaer Seren. His scarred, freckled skin boasted of a fair amount of experience as a witcher, but he was light-hearted and easy-going in a way that contrasted starkly with the pessimistic and sometimes downright maudlin air that hung over most of the witchers at Kaer Seren, when they weren’t busy fighting or getting drunk enough to forget their own names.

They were pleasant enough company, sure, and dinners were always far more interesting when they were there, trading barbs and exchanging stories of contracts fulfilled in the past year... But Julian could count on one hand the members of their company had ever been properly _happy_ , insofar as Jaskier had experienced, and they were him, Coën, and Henrik... Perhaps also Rook, too, beneath his unfalteringly calm demeanour. He kept Henrik’s company, after all, and his amiable grin was rather infectious.

So, highly unsurprisingly, it was their company that Julian and Coën chose to keep.

The two older witchers didn’t seem to mind this, and Henrik in particular enjoyed recounting tales of his exploits to the boys, clearly eager for the new audience to his tales. He spoke of daring exploits, fights against sirens and griffins and leshens, of defeating monsters with heroism despite the scorn of the people he saved.

Indeed, Henrik was halfway through one such story during a meal, of a time when he did battle with a chimaera, when he was interrupted.

“That never happened,” Rook pointed out mildly, taking a sip of ale.

“Sure it did!” Henrik squawked. “It was majestic and glorious!”

“I was there. You tripped on a stick, of all things, and landed flat on your arse, and you only slit the chimaera’s neck because you started waving your sword around like an imbecile, while I was trying to fend off its bloody father.” Rook raised a thick eyebrow, and turned to the boys sitting opposite them. “Don’t believe a word he says. It’s embellishment, all of it.”

Julian smirked. “I figured.”

Henrik spluttered. “You did not!”

“We know what embellishment sounds like, Henrik,” Coën retorted, with a wicked grin. “We’re not naïve enough to swallow all of your shit.”

“Oi!”

“If it helps soothe your ego, I have spent a very long time around Julian, and he insists on exaggerating absolutely everything, from the colour of the sky to the taste of his soup.”

Henrik’ eyebrows shot up into his hair, an expression that was more of intrigue than the dramatic, betrayed look he had sported a second ago, and he turned to look at the boy in question. “Ah! A kindred spirit, then!”

From the look of Coën’s face, he’d realised exactly what he’d done. “No. No, you can’t. You can’t get all buddy-buddy with each other. Julian alone is already giving me grey hairs! I don’t think my heart could handle two overly dramatic idiots!”

Rook snorted at Coën’s theatrics, the irony of his antics not exactly lost on him. “Don’t worry. I’ve known Henrik since he was a kid someone dragged up here, and I’ve travelled with him after he trained, too, so you can take it from me that he’s pretty benign. All bark and no bite.”

Coën glanced at Henrik and Julian, both of whom were smirking at them with pure glee. “It’s not that. I’m worried about what _Julian_ will do to _Henrik_. We’ll wake up tomorrow and they’ll have dressed all the horses in old Keldar’s clothes!”

Raising his ale to his lips once more, Rook considered the statement a while, before letting a gentle, serene smile overtake his face. “Tell me you wouldn’t want to see that.”

“I-” Coën started, but paused. “I... would actually like to see that. Just a little bit.”

Julian’s howling giggles were loud enough to catch the attention of every witcher in the room. “Damn it, Coën, now that you’ve said it out loud, we can’t do it!”

“I’m sure you’ll think of something better, Julek. I have faith in your ability to cause chaos.”

The boy gasped, bringing a hand to his heart, and a shit-eating grin spread over his features. ‘Why, Coën, that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“Shut up,” Coën muttered, but there was fondness in his voice. Julian smirked.

“Aw, look, Rook, they’re like miniature versions of us,” grinned Henrik.

Rook shook his head in exasperation. “You can’t look at every slightly mouthy kid and his friend and declare that they’re miniature versions of us.”

“And who, pray tell, is going to stop me?”

The bearded witcher rolled his eyes, almost imperceptibly, and muttered something that may or may not have been _I might_.

“Yep,” Julian grinned. “Definitely not us. Coën would never stop me, he’d join me.”

Rook returned the smile. “Don’t make Henrik too jealous, now. He’s far too old to be crying on my shoulder and I’m trying to train him out of it.”

“Hey!”

Henrik’s indignant spluttering was loud enough to draw the attention of several of the other witchers, who cast amused glances their way before turning back to their own conversations. Evidently, winding Henrik up was considered to be an enjoyable pastime at the keep.

Pointedly ignoring the snickering of his companions, the red-haired witcher launched back into the tale he’d spun of his exploits, loosely based on true stories.

To hear Henrik tell it, he had been separated from Rook in the fight - and they’d met completely by accident not an hour beforehand, as they occasionally did, having unknowingly taken the same contract from two separate villages - and was facing down a formidable chimaera sporting several exacerbated injuries from a noonwraith, but still managing to put up the fight of his life.

Rook’s amendments, however, clarified that he was fighting an adolescent chimaera whilst Rook took on the creature’s father, having left the smaller beast to him in the first place because the idiot had decided to take a contract despite knowing full well that he was nowhere near recovered from the strenuous run-in with the noonwraith.

“-And then, I slashed at it’s throat with my free arm as it pinned me down with gusto!”

“You tripped over and it pounced on you, so you started screaming and flailing and hit it by accident.”

“Killed it in one strike!”

“You nicked its throat so it leapt back, and started frantically slashing at it. Still screaming, if I recall.”

“Shut up, Rook! Despite my harrowing injuries, I pressed on, and removed its head as proof swiftly and easily.”

“You were crying and asked me to do it.”

“It slashed my stomach open!”

“No, you ripped your stitches.”

“Fuck off,” Henrik grumbled. “How am I supposed to make a good impression if you keep slandering me?”

Rook opened his mouth to reply, but Julian beat him to it. “By actually doing something impressive, Sir Witcher.”

Henrik reeled back in mock offence. “Why, you-”

“Get him, Julek,” Coën grinned, and Julian smirked back wickedly. Rook sat back, amusement written all over his features.

“Please, do not get me,” Henrik feebly protested. “My ego is a very fragile thing, you know.”

“That just means you have to train it, Sir Witcher,” Julian smiled, startlingly menacing for a child. “I can help you with that.”

The red-headed witcher’s face seemed caught between a fair few emotions, ranging from horror to amusement, and then to something that betrayed that he was most likely contemplating whether or not it would be acceptable for him to tell a child to fuck off.

“Say, Julian,” Coën interrupted sharing a mirthful glance with the boy, “Henrik was the one who cooked tonight, wasn’t he?”

“I do believe he was,” Julian realised slowly, fixing the ginger man in his sights.

“He was,” Rook confirmed, a small smile playing at his lips, earning himself a quiet hiss of traitor from his friend.

“I suppose it would only be fair to... evaluate his skill, then, wouldn’t it?”

“No! What have I ever done to you, young Coën?”

Rook grinned. “Shying away from criticism, Henrik? How unbecoming of a Griffin Witcher.”

“I take it back,” Julian said. “He’s exactly like you, Coën.”

Henrik groaned theatrically into his hands. “Next winter, I am holing up in... shit, a cave, or someone’s barn, I don’t know, just... away from you two little menaces.”

Julian raised a delighted eyebrow at the man, who was undoubtedly biting back his own grin. It wasn’t every day, after all, that a witcher was able to engage in such high-quality banter, as stoic and gruff as most of them tended to be.

“Julian here is an excellent judge of quality,” Coën continued, ignoring Henrik’s objections. “He will taste your food and deliver an analysis and verdict.”

“He’s already fucking eaten half of it!”

Rook swatted the back of his fellow’s head. “Don’t swear at the children, fool.”

Indignantly, Henrik elbowed his attacker in the side. “You’ve heard them talk, Rook, they swear more than the bloody rest of us put together!”

“Children, children, please,” Coën grinned, raising his arms in a placating gesture. “Please, show Lord Julian your respect.”

“You should listen to him,” Julian smirked, making a show of placing the tiniest morsel of meat into his mouth, all the while maintaining eye contact with Henrik.

The meal itself was pleasant enough, if a bit unusual for the keep - meat with potatoes that someone had apparently lugged up the mountains, instead of various stews and soups - and it was seasoned, too, indicating that Henrik had at least been trying to aim for a bar higher than simple nourishment as he cooked.

The meat - venison, undoubtedly the catch of one of the older witchers - was well done, and seasoned in a way that, whilst still somewhat bland, was a step above what most of their peers were capable of. Indeed, in Kaer Seren, where the average cooking ability seemed to peter off at _skin it and stick it over a flame until it’s not raw anymore_ , the meal stood out as particularly pleasant. Clearly, Henrik had his hobbies.

“It tastes like utter shit,” he announced, magnanimously, and Henrik clutched Rooks arm, gasping loudly.

“You hear that? You hear that, Rook? My humble offerings have been spurned by a child! How will I ever recover from this slight?”

“You’ll live.”

“I will most certainly not! I can hardly see you taking this in stride if he’d insulted your lute-playing, Rook!”

This was met with a deafening silence, as Julian and Coën, as well as several other curious Griffins, turned their attention to Rook, who had suddenly gone very still.

Julian was the first to speak, yellow eyes wide and curious.

“You play the lute?”

His voice was loud and excited, almost a yell, and Rook shifted slightly.

“That he does,” Henrik smirked. “That’s what the mysterious bag he came in with was, by the way, the one he insisted was just _spare supplies_. It’s quite a story, actually, let me tell you.”

Rook snorted. “If any of it resembles the truth, I’ll be shocked, my friend.”

“Shush, Rook, you’re just jealous of my story-telling capabilities,” the red-headed witcher dismissed, “So, it goes like this. We were still travelling together after leaving here, last spring, and we were a few days from Ard Carraigh, where we were planning to part ways for the year, when we get to this village in the morning that wants us to take care of a monster in the woods. Rook took the job, I’d taken the last one, and so he goes into the forest and I go to the inn and buy a drink, and he comes back at dusk with a lute.”

“Consider me impressed, Henrik. That’s actually accurate so far,” Rook interrupted, most of the witchers having turned back to their own, marginally less interesting conversations.

“Of course it is, would I ever lie?”

“Frequently.”

Ignoring Rook’s reply, Henrik continued. “Anyways, we were in the village, and Rook comes back at dusk with a lute, and I ask him what took him so long, and why the lute. And then he said that the man who’d offered him the contract - a very nice man, by the way, pretty comfortable with the whole witcher thing - didn’t have enough coin to pay him and they offered him the lute instead, but that’s not all. When I asked him why he took so long to do the job - it turned out to be an adolescent wyvern, by the way, but that still shouldn’t take a whole day - you know what he said?”

Julian shook his head, enraptured.

“He said he didn’t want to take the lute without knowing how to play it, and could he please teach him some?”

Rook groaned. “Please, shut up.”

“Is he any good?” Julian asked, interest evident on his face.

“Hardly,” Rook mumbled, just as Henrik simultaneously grinned and said _yes_.

Julian dropped his fork by his plate, and leant over the table, coming face-to face with Rook.

“Teach me.”

Rook blinked. “You want me to... teach you to play the lute?”

“Yes!”

Raising thick, dark eyebrows, Rook looked at the boy before him. “I’m no expert.”

“But you know more than I do.”

“That’s true, I suppose,” Rook said. “I’ll do it if you don’t mind losing an hour or so of sleep.”

“I don’t!’ Julian chirped, and so Rook nodded, and they went up to his room, all four of them - one new lute teacher, an odd student, and two spectator witchers who were very, very interested to see the forthcoming spectacle unfold.

Rook’s room was in the upper levels of the castle, in the same corridor, he’d said, as Henrik’s. The winding steps taken to get to that point were worn but sturdy, reaching upwards in a long but steady spiral across most of the keep’s floors. The scuffed, shiny depressions in the centre of each step betrayed the traffic that the stairs had likely experienced back when the School of the Griffin had been operating at maximum capacity, before Kaer Seren got so damn empty.

Julian had heard, at one point, that these had been the elder witchers’ quarters, back when they were all still alive. Now, it was inhabited only by returning witchers who came here in the winter.

Rook’s room had once been grand, the once-grand wooden panelling and the ornate furniture, chipped and cracked and fallen into disrepair, betraying as much. Its current occupant, however, seemed less than concerned with the state of the room - all of Rook’s belongings were still neatly in his pack, which had been deposited onto the desk that undoubtedly had not been used to write on in centuries.

The lute that Henrik had spoken of back in the atrium rested in an oddly-shaped leather case, not distinct enough to immediately be recognisable for what it contained, but accommodating enough for the lute to be supported within it. Rook opened it carefully, and withdrew the lute - a spruce instrument with many strings... Strings that looked suspiciously familiar.

“Are those guts?” Julian asked, eyeing the lute.

Rook tilted his head slightly. “Yes, that’s what they string lutes with.”

“Huh. Nice.”

“So, do you want me to show you a few chords, or just tell you what to do?”

Julian considered his options for a moment. “Show me, it’ll be easier if I know what it’s supposed to sound like.”

“Alright.”

As Rook settled the instrument in his lap and tried the strings, tuning the lute, Coën leant forward to whisper in Julian’s ear, knowing full well that he couldn’t keep any other witchers from hearing it if he tried. “If this pans out, you’ll be able to write that ballad about old Keldar.”

Julian smirked. “I know.”

Rook gave the instrument a few strums, frowning at it.

“It sounds fine,” Henrik called, busying himself with poking around in Rook’s pack.

“Just because you’re tone deaf, Henrik, doesn’t mean the rest of us are, too. And rummage through your own belongings if you’re missing something so badly.”

Henrik ignored him.

Giving the lute strings a few final, grudgingly satisfied tugs, Rook strummed a chord, crisp and clear. It rang out, sharp and melancholy, disturbing the comfortable atmosphere that had settled into the room.

Rook strummed it again, louder, and waited for the final echoes of the sound to cease before speaking.

“G minor. It’s my favourite. There are more complex variants, but I don’t know them.”

Julian grinned. “Can I try?”

“Of course,” Rook said, shifting as he handed the instrument to the boy. “Here, you need to hold down these strings, put your fingers here, there, and there - a little to the left - that’s it.”

Deftly positioning his fingers in the correct positions on the strings, Julian strummed the lute, a slightly less clear rendition of the chord Rook had played filling the air.

“Lift your hand up slightly, so that your palm isn’t so close to the... neck thing,” Henrik waved, casting a glance at the boy, and Rook raised an eyebrow. “What? I know how sounds work. He’s muffling it.”

Heeding Henrik’s advice, Julian raised his hand a little, the angle of his fingers against the neck of the lute becoming wider. He gave the lute another strum, and this time, the chord was sharp and clear, just as Rook’s had been.

“If you shift your top finger down a little - about there, that’s it - that becomes G major.”

Strumming the new chord, another sound rang out, similar and yet wildly different the the sorrowful G minor. Where the minor was sad and wistful, the major was brighter, happier than its counterpart.

Shifting his fingers, Julian strummed a G minor again, before shifting back to G major.

“How about A major? You’ll have to move all of your fingers, this time - shift them up there, hold down that one slightly to the left... Okay.”

Rook’s calloused hands hovered above Julian’s, pointing and gesturing to the correct positions but never touching either the lute or the boy’s hands - he didn’t need to. His faint gesturing was enough.

Julian strummed the chord, another more jovial sound ringing out, and Rook smiled.

“Lift that top finger and you get A minor.”

The minor was once again more melancholy, cutting through the quiet of the room like a blade.

Julian pressed his finger down once more, A major ringing out before the minor chord’s echoes had really faded out, and then shifted his grip entirely to play G major once more, followed by G minor.

“You’re picking up on that annoyingly fast,” Henrik commented, still rootling through Rook’s pack.

Julian smirked. “Maybe I have a talent.”

The lilt in his voice was joking, but Rook nodded and him, a smile on his lips. “If you put your fingers here, and move that one down there, that’ll make a C major.”

They cycled through Rook’s repertoire of chords quickly enough, moving from C to B flat to D sharp and then to E, and Julian memorised the chords with surprising ease, strumming them confidently, with misses and false notes present, but not as overwhelmingly as one would expect from a beginner.

“If you tune it differently, you can end up with a whole different set of chords,” Rook mumbled. “But I don’t know them.”

“These are cool,” Julian grinned, strumming a D sharp minor. “It’s not like I have anything to play, myself. How did you remember all the chords?”

“I wrote them down,” Rook said, fishing out a loose, folded sheet of thin parchment, slightly ragged and rather worn, from the lute case. Unfolding it, he revealed a multitude of crude, labelled diagrams, showing different positions on what was surely meant to represent lute strings. Each diagram sported an almost uncharacteristically neat label - evidently, Rook had better handwriting than his artistic skills betrayed - naming the chord.

Jaskier regarded them carefully, before turning his attention back to his strumming. Choosing to vary the chords a little, he strummed a G major, followed by a D sharp major, then a B flat major and an F major to finish it off, repeating the odd little sequence over and over, amusing himself.

“Your first composition?” Coën said, only half-teasing.

Julian shook his head. “Too shit for that.”

“I don’t know, I think it counts,” Coën grinned. “Needs some words, though?”

“Please, do not ask me to rhyme so late at night.”

The raven-haired boy pouted. “But it’s your first composition!”

Henrik snorted from the back of the room. “Let’s hear the lyrics, kid.”

Julian rolled his eyes, continuing his strumming. The chords were not dissonant, but there was a certain clunky awkwardness to the tune, betraying his lack of expertise with the instrument.

Unlike the melody he imagined, so unlike the one he was able to create, words came easily to Julian - they always had. He’d always been unusually verbose. He cast his mind around for a topic, trying to think of something to sing about. Precious little had happened in Julian’s life thus far, young as he was, and he had no desire to sing about the Trials, or anything mundane, which just left...

_There once was a king_

_Thought of with respect_

_His subjects all thought_

_They knew what to expect_ -

It was a silly verse, and it didn’t match the cheery, awkward melody at all, but he had the rest of forever to rework it.

Handing the lute back to Rook, along with a promise that he would be back for it every day for the rest of the waning winter to try and play it, he and Coën made their way out of the older witcher’s room, and started back towards their own room, situated a few floors down and on the other side of the keep, near the front where Rook’s quarters were near the back of it.

They walked back down the spiral stairs in a comfortable, tired almost-silence, Julian humming tunes and muttering lyrics, snippets of a song about a two-faced king and an unloved prince.

Coën broke the silence first. “Am I reading too much into this, or is that a metaphor?”

The humming stopped, fading out softly, as Julian considered the question. “It’s supposed to be a metaphor, yeah.”

“Don’t.”

“Sorry?”

Laying a hand briefly on his friend’s shoulder, Coën did not slow his pace, and he did not meet his eyes. “Don’t sing about that. It won’t do any good to dwell on it.”

“My father?”

“Yeah. It’s... It’s damn depressing, is what it is. Thinking about how you’re here because someone who was supposed to love you was a little too willing to give you up. So... please, Julek, sing about something else. Something happy.”

Julian nodded, long, tawny hair falling in front of his eyes.

“Yeah, he was a dick. Terrible muse for a first composition. How about a song about Keldar?”

Coën groaned. “You’re going to actually write ballads about your supposedly ballad-worthy rivalry now, aren’t you, you little songbird?”

“Yep.”

“Why not sing about Henrik’s exploits with the chimaera?”

Julian grinned. “Brilliant idea, Coën! What would I do without you?”

“Sing really depressing songs, probably. And have far uglier scars.”

“Hey!”

Coën snorted. “You’re terrible at stitching wounds, Julian. I bear the proof on my skin.”

“Hey! As if your earlier work is any better,” the younger boy said, pointedly gesturing with his right hand, where an ugly scar marred his arm, starting halfway up his forearm. “The stitching on this is ridiculous, and it’s on my sword arm!”

“Both of your arms are your sword arms, Julian, I’ve seen you with those flashy little short swords. You can’t fight a kikimora with a finesse weapon.”

“I can certainly try. The Vipers seem to manage.”

“Henrik is not a reliable source on anything, Julek, so I wouldn’t trust his word on the Viper school’s fighting practices before you can verify it.”

Julian huffed, crossing his arms, keeping his lips firmly pressed together.

“I’m teasing,” Coën amended, glancing down at his friend.

“I know. I’m just tired.”

Coën nodded, at that. “We’re here.”

“I know where we live, Coën,” Julian snorted, but he all but collapsed onto the pile of blankets they’d started to use as a makeshift bed as soon as he pushed open the door to the former storage room.

They’d thought of dragging an actual bed or two from the dormitory into the storage room, but they’d come to the accord that they’d been sleeping on the floor for so long that a bed would feel weird anyways, and this way they could save both space and effort. The blankets, however, were welcome - Kaer Seren got deathly cold in the winter, probably something to do with being in the mountains.

“We should get a chest or something to keep our things in, one of these days,” Coën mused, pulling a clean shirt out of the pile on the floor. “Julian, get changed, or else you’re sleeping on the cold, bare floor. I refuse to share a blanket with someone who still reeks of today’s training.”

Julian muttered a muffled protest, but grudgingly pulled himself up from the blankets.

Coën tossed him a bundle of red and brown - clean clothes.

“I’m tired, Coën,” Julian complained, but dutifully began to change behind Coën’s back regardless.

“I know you’re tired. It’s late,” Coën said, folding his dirtied clothing and setting it down, putting it aside with the other dirty clothes they had accumulated at an alarming rate over the past few days.

The sweaty tunic that hit the back of his head moments later signified that Julian, too, was once again in clean clothes.

“Charming,” Coën grumbled, setting his friend’s clothes down before making his own way over to the makeshift blanket pile that they shared. “Your manners are impeccable, Julek.”

Julian hummed, curling deeper into the blankets, his silence a testament to his exhaustion. Coën lay down carefully beside him, shuffling under the blankets with minimal movement.

“G’night, Coën,” Julian mumbled, snuggling deeper into the blankets and, by extension, Coën’s side.

“Goodnight,” Coën whispered, absently running a hand through Julian’s hair. “You fucking lark.”

Julian grinned at him, eyes still closed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I Need to mention that the amazing [brothebro](https://archiveofourown.org/users/brothebro/pseuds/brothebro) (The author of the best witcher!jaskier [fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23052019?view_full_work=true) ever) did some fanart!!! For this fic!!! A small [Julian](https://brothebro.tumblr.com/post/615396782295465984/kid-witcherjaskier-from-stars-in-my-damn-eyes) and a [Rook](https://brothebro.tumblr.com/post/616300445908041728/its-stars-in-my-damn-eyess-rook)!!!! I’m-
> 
> I also drew a [Rook and Henrik](https://stars-in-my-damn-eyes.tumblr.com/post/616220482885353472/its-them-henrik-and-rook-god-ive-only).
> 
> Next week I will have skipped over a winter in Oxenfurt because if I have to describe one more fucking lute lesson I’ll scream. I know nothing of music and it shows :D
> 
> I hope this chapter was palatable :’D


	9. Interruptions, Imbeciles, and Inconsistency

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaskier spent an enjoyable enough time in Oxenfurt whilst Geralt ditched him for the winter - so of course, it can only go downhill from there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it turns out I’m absolutely fucking horrible at counting. I thought we were still at the early beginning of the fic until I googled how long a word count of 44k actually was and what that meant.
> 
> The reason nothing has happened yet is because I wrote 44k words of beginning the damn story. Whoops. And speaking of asinine word counts-
> 
> 12K WORDS.
> 
> 12K WORDS.
> 
> TWELVE FUCKING THOUSAND FUCKING WORDS.
> 
> I don’t know how, but I do know that I actually _like_ this chapter. Progress!!
> 
> In other news, the witcher!jaskier fics are multiplying and i am overjoyed about that!!! And also suddenly feeling kind of small next to of all these highly talented individuals who write so much better than I do lmao.
> 
> I can’t believe this fic has gotten so long?? I am Confusion as to how I managed it. I’m the opposite of an experienced writer - i have about 5 months of sporadic experience hdjfghjkhjkhk
> 
> ANYWAYS enjoy and I’m so fucking sorry for any speaker of the Hungarian language who has the misfortune of knowing precisely which words I bastardised here.

Jaskier had not been back to Kaer Seren in decades.

It had been a veritable age since the keep had last played host to him for the winter - he promised himself every autumn that this year, this year would be the year he returned, the year he reunited with his friends, who, annoyingly enough, he seemed fated to avoid on the Path... But it never was. He’d abandoned the Path hastily two decades, or maybe three, after the Trial of the Medallion, and he’d leapt at the opportunity to retire as a witcher, so to speak, and, save for the occasional winter where the lonely homesickness had gotten too much to bear, never looked back.

He’d never even considered returning to the Path after he slid on the glamour - and really, it was a marvellous piece of work, disguising everything, from his most prominent features, his scars, his eyes, his teeth, with canines far too sharp to be human, to even the most subtle little clues. His scent, his heartbeat, all masked. It even had an ingenious system of masking new scars, too - an injury, be it a cut, a bruise, or a scab, would show neatly through the glamour, and heal leaving never a blemish visible - unless, of course, he were to take it off. Aside from the minor issue with the bleeding, a tiny little oversight, really, it was perfect.

Jaskier found himself removing exceedingly rarely, seldom having a reason to, and he was somewhat used to seeing years’ worth of new scars that he didn’t know he’d accumulated on his body whenever he did deign to slip the worn anklet off.

The point was, it had been a small eternity since Jaskier had returned to his keep, even despite his friends and brothers tethering him there. It wasn’t, as one might have assumed, Jaskier’s utter lack of respect of the witcher lifestyle that kept him from returning for winters.

Gods, no, it was simply circumstance. Circumstance that things had just kept... Things had just kept happening, really, and he found himself not having been back to Kaer Seren in, oh, a decade or two?

Of course, it sounded bad when it was phrased like that.

Jaskier massaged his forehead with the heel of his hand, headache pounding in his head. He’d spent the most glorious winter in Oxenfurt - this time, his excuse was that Kovir was far too far from Kaedwen, and if he went up to the keep in the mountains, he’d end up snowed in till after winter had passed, and Geralt _‘I don’t have any friends’_ of fucking Rivia would be long gone.

If he wanted to catch him, Jaskier knew, he’d have to nab him in Kaedwen, outside of Kaer Morhen, before he could get very far and force Jaskier to put actual effort into tracking him, and there was a reason that he avoided such covert, somewhat shady activities - that reason being that they got very boring and annoying very quickly. That was why he was leaving Oxenfurt, still in the middle of winter, really, to travel to bloody _Kaedwen_ , of all places. _Kaedwen_. They really couldn’t have picked a bigger shithole to build Kaer Morhen in, could they? Or were Velen and Nilfgaard simply already taken?

It was a good plan, to catch Geralt as he was leaving Kaer Morhen, a great plan, and it had all gone to shit last night when his old _friends_ had decided to take the occasion to get completely and utterly shitfaced. Witchers were hard-pressed to suffer hangovers, but Jaskier had drunk enough the previous night to kill three ordinary men, and to lay a fourth low for two weeks.

Maybe that was why he was reminiscing so much. It was hard to care all to much about the past, after all, when one was having to actively concentrate on walking.

He was very glad he had invested in a horse - a most majestic grey mare that, during one late night of drunken shenanigans, his so-called _friends_ (culpability actually fell on the shoulders of himself first of all, and then some of his closer acquaintances, but he’d be damned before he _admitted_ it) had thought to kindly train to respond to the name _Bollocks_. But, regardless of the name, a horse was a horse, and Jaskier had absolutely no intent whatsoever to walk to Kaedwen. That was absolutely where he drew the line. Walking to places? That was fine. Entering Kaedwen? He was capable of the act, yes. Both at the same time? That was far too much effort for far too little payoff.

Despite his low opinion of the place, he had no particular quarrel with Kaedwen. His animosity towards the kingdom stemmed, quite simply, from the fact that the food was bad and the ale was worse, and Jaskier preferred to spend his time elsewhere - Temeria, Metinna, Redania, even Cintra, on occasion - where life was far more pleasant. He’d known enough unpleasantness to last a lifetime.

Three lifetimes, actually, if this fucking hangover was to be included. His head was pounding and he felt sick to his stomach - how had he managed to get _this_ drunk on a bloody witcher’s metabolism? How had nobody noticed how bloody much he’d had? Had whoever owned the fine establishment where he’d no doubt downed half of all their stock simply shrugged it off as just a _bard_ thing?

Jaskier groaned to himself, and hoisted his aching body clumsily into the saddle that adorned the back of his unfortunately-named horse, pack and lute jostling uncomfortably. This was awful, he’d have to make a mental note never to go out drinking with Oxenfurt alumni ever again. He was fairly certain that at least one of his fleeting companions had actually managed to kill himself via alcohol poisoning last night, if his drink-addled memory was to be trusted - it was ridiculous.

Given that Jaskier wasn’t about to start on such long journey the next day, he would absolutely doing it again. Drinking oneself into a coma was so much more fun with careless poets than gruff and stoic witchers.

As it was, however, the aches and various pains of his massive hangover were only exacerbated by the rhythmic jolting of his unfortunately-named horse. It felt like his brain was being shaken around by his head, and, had it not been highly important that he get to Kaedwen before Geralt could fuck off and leave his barker scouring the continent, he would most certainly have taken a day to rest.

By the evening, he was a good way away from Oxenfurt, Bollocks the horse having proved a speedy mount. He decided, rather than to waste time looking for a village with an inn, to simply set up camp where he was, somewhere in the Redanian forest. Despite the shared border between Redania and Kaedwen, Oxenfurt and Kaer Morhen were both at the opposite ends of their respective kingdoms, in what Jaskier was sure was a massive geographical middle finger in his specific direction by life itself, to ensure that his journey was annoyingly and unnecessarily long.

“Come on, girl,” he muttered to the horse, as he coaxed his poor mare towards a campsite, where Bollocks followed him with remarkable compliance. He’d evidently chosen a very pleasant and even-tempered mount. It was such a shame that a gaggle of raucously drunk lutists had named her so unfortunately.

Bollocks, however, seemed perfectly content - and gods, what he’d not give to have the horse respond to any other name, if only to save his dignity when he inevitable ventured amongst the general public with the horse - and settled down quickly in the clearing, whilst Jaskier removed his admittedly quite heavy belongings from her back.

She deserved some rest, too.

Jaskier had, after realising that he would be following around a witcher for the foreseeable future, immediately stocked up on all the supplies he’d deemed unnecessary for life as a travelling bard - who needed a quality bedroll when most nights were spent in an inn? A cheaper, lighter one would do fine. The Path was far more demanding than idle travels, after all, and he’d saved himself a great amount of trouble and coin by lessening his load of equipment down to the bare minimum.

The things he did for Geralt, honestly.

Still, he wasn’t complaining. The higher quality bedroll he’d nabbed himself during a sale in Oxenfurt was heavenly after so many occasions spent sleeping wrapped in what might as well have been a scrap of parchment - the utter lack of quality was really despicable - and he actually felt _comfortable_ as he lay against it, propped up against a log, strumming his lute idly.

The fire crackled merrily as the sky darkened. He’d set it with an Igni, he wasn’t so invested in his cover that he’d forgo such easy convenience when he was so completely alone, and its crackling was calm and soothing. His headache was rapidly fading - thank the gods for witcher metabolism - and so he decided to amuse himself by the fire, play a few songs.

Jaskier loved company, loved performing, but there was something to be said about the comfortable freedom of being completely alone, unseen by outside eyes who were so willing to evaluate his songs and draw conclusions from them.

His fingers strummed the lute idly, a familiar chord progression springing forth - a simple melody at its core, reworked so many times over the years, the tune shifting from the clunky compositions of a beginner to something smoother and more refined. It did, to Jaskier’s annoyance, sound somewhat like he’d tacked some bells and whistles onto an unskilled, simplistic composition... Mainly because that was exactly what he’d done, but then, the tune _was_ one of his first compositions. It was rather annoying, really - nostalgia prevented him from changing it too much, but the flaws and errors of an awkward child so present in the clunky, repetitive tune made him itch to rework it entirely.

In the end, he’d left it half-arsed. The subject matter of the song alone ensured that no audience other than himself would ever hear it, and he could, albeit grudgingly, accept the poor composition under such a condition.

“Do you want to hear a song, girl?” Jaskier crooned, turning his attention to his idling mare, who flicked an ear as he spoke.

The poor creature. To think she’d actually been named _Bollocks_.

Jaskier took the horse’s silence as agreement - and really, how was a horse going to protest a performance? He strummed the chords again, smoothly transitioning from the simple, idle progression into the opening notes of a song that he’d written so long ago.

_In a mountainside keep, where the library lies_

_And nobody quite dares to go_

_Lives the old man, so unkempt, grey, and wise,_

_Who bleats about all he does know._

_All the pages of books, stashed away from the world_

_He prides above all else that’s real,_

_A shame, than when all of his scrolls are unfurled,_

_He still cannot manage to feel._

_Respect he demands, his own manners be damned,_

_As if he were some sort of czar!_

_He looks down upon us, like a wolf to a lamb,_

_And sneers upon all that we are_

_With his oily grey hair and his petulant eyes_

_He ridicules every young man_

_He talks with a tongue only built to chastise_

_And scorns us simply ‘cause he can!_

_Well, old man, I tell you, that you are a fool,_

_If you think that we’ll let this slip by_

_You are the pest of the whole Griffin School_

_And it’s high time that we told you why!_

The melody of the song was simple and repetitive, with the odd flourish peppered in here or there, as Jaskier expanded on his childish composition. He’d been ridiculously proud of himself when he’d first finished it, and he could remember humming it and quoting it almost religiously back in the keep, him and Coën always ending up giggling at it regardless of the fact that any comedic value that the song may have held had been well and truly exhausted by the end of the first week of ceaselessly repeating it.

Jaskier grinned to himself, and barely restrained himself from asking the horse for an opinion. Bollocks would not be able to actually answer such a query, and he wasn’t about to pick up Geralt’s habit of conversing with his horse. Not to mention, Jaskier and Bollocks didn’t know each other well enough, by any metric, to launch into deep, reminiscent conversations - Jaskier was talkative, yes, but he had no intention of spilling all of his deepest secrets to a stranger, even if said stranger was a horse.

“Are you alright there, Bollocks?” Jaskier asked instead, trying to manage the statement with a straight face, to limited success. This was technically not yet a conversation with his horse, though, and poor Bollocks didn’t deserve to be ignored.

The horse glanced at him, before turning her attention back to the lone, small patch of grass growing at the base of a nearby tree - not something he’d expected to stumble across in the middle of winter, but something that he was grateful for. It kept the horse occupied, which was a good thing.

Jaskier slid Filavandrel’s lute back into its case, before curling up in his bedroll. The sun had barely set, but if they were to rest now, they could begin their journey before dawn the next day, and be none the less exhausted for it.

Despite the uncomfortable, hungover start, the journey seemed to be going well.

Forgoing meditation in favour of actually sleeping - really, the bedroll was just so damn _comfortable_ \- Jaskier relaxed, the cold winter air barely a bother, and watcher the embers of the fire he’d conjured out of his damn hand die down as he drifted off into a light sleep, surrounded by the the rustling of the winter breeze through the forest and the quiet scuffling of various creatures.

It was nice. Calming. Jaskier didn’t usually go in for this kind of thing, and he knew he’d be bemoaning his lonely fate to his apathetic horse by the day after tomorrow, but for now, he could enjoy the peace and quiet.

It was such a shame that it didn’t last.

Jaskier had, predominantly during his stint as a proper witcher, been awoken by bandits looking to loot his stash of belongings and perhaps kill him while they were at it, and he knew how to deal with this kind of situation.

Barely roused from his sleep, he reached for one of his daggers - the one from the assassin, which he’d tucked into a sheath-like pocket he’d sewn into his waistband, it was convenient and nicely hidden - and, as swiftly as an arrow, swung it to press lightly against the neck of the unfamiliar figure standing over him, his other hand grabbing the wrist that had a second ago been reaching for him.

He opened his eyes to see a willowy woman, dressed in flowing garments far too light for the winter, standing over him, not looking the least bit perturbed.

He could feel his medallion buzzing faintly where he’d stashed it in his bedroll, by his feet.

 _Sorceress_.

“Oh, good,” she said, looking as impassive as she sounded, voice a drawling monotone. “I have the right bard.”

“The right-” Jaskier repeated, incredulous. “Who the fuck are you?”

“Doesn’t matter,” the sorceress shrugged. “All I need to know is who you are. Or verify it, rather.”

Jaskier scowled, shifting out of his bedroll, and stood, not loosening his grip on the woman’s wrist or removing the blade from her throat. Perhaps the sorceress had nothing to fear from his meagre attack, perhaps steel was still a threat to her, Jaskier didn’t know - his knowledge on their kind was lacklustre at best, not really deeming it to be pertinent information for either a witcher or a bard - but like hell was he about to do anything that could conceivably be misinterpreted as a gesture of deference or trust.

The sorceress looked at him with the same expression of apathy.

“Why are you here, then? Harassing a lowly bard?”

“You’re no _lowly bard_ ,” the sorceress said, peering at Jaskier with interested green eyes. “You are the witcher who sought the aid of one of my colleagues for a glamour, are you not?”

Oh, _fuck_. If this wasn’t the absolute worst thing that the sorceress could have thrown in his face, then Jaskier had no idea what was.

“Who’s asking? I just think, you know, that it’s a bit unfair of you to come after me with my life story and not even give me an introduction,” he drawled, trying to school his face to be as uninterested as the sorceress’ and perhaps only slightly failing.

“I’m an associate of the one who made your glamour - the reclusive one with red hair, who never gives a name, in case you desire proof. You promised her a favour alongside all the coin, did you not?”

“It’s not transferable,” Jaskier scowled. “I promised the favour to _her_ , not whichever one of her friends felt like calling it in first. I’m not some kind of dog at your collective beck and call. If she wants to collect it, she can come and get it herself.”

“She’s dead.”

“It’s still not transferable.”

The sorceress sighed. “That’s a shame. Almost as great of a shame, in fact, as it would be if I were to break your glamour.”

Jaskier just about managed to stop his right leg, the one that wore the anklet, from twitching. She likely already knew where it was, but he would not volunteer any information, regardless.

They stood, silent, for a moment.

“You couldn’t,” the bard tried. “She made it to be damn near indestructible.”

“ _Damn near_ ,” the sorceress repeated, with particular emphasis, and Jaskier got the message, loud and clear. _Fuck_. He’d built his damn life around that fucking glamour.

Apparently all the good that had done was make him ridiculously easy to blackmail.

“Right, right, got it,” Jaskier said, loosening his grip and holding his hands up in mock surrender - the effect only slightly lessened by the fact that he still held a dagger. “If you are going to conscript me into your service against my will, though, my fair lady, might I at least ask your name?”

The sorceress exhaled a little, almost imperceptibly. “Lohere.”

“Right. Thank you. I’m-”

“Julian of Kovir, I know.”

“I was going to say honoured to make your acquaintance, but that works too,” Jaskier shrugged, hoping against hope that she wouldn’t end up calling him that in public. As witchers went, Julian of Kovir was a very obscure one, but the chance that someone would recognise the name was still there.

He’d paid far too damn much for that fucking glamour.

“What do you need me for?”

Lohere raised an eyebrow. “Our mutual friend was killed in a... shall we say, a skirmish, that broke out between parties hunting a specific little tome. The person who killed her is a member of a certain noble house.”

“If you say I have to go in and commit mass-murder, I’m going to... I’m going to do something very unpleasant,” Jaskier threatened.

Nodding, the sorceress turned to survey Jaskier’s impromptu campsite, belongings, and horse. “It’s hardly _mass-murder_ , it’s one man and his idiot posse.”

“And how big is his idiot posse?” Jaskier scoffed. “Mass-murder, like I said. Let me pack my stuff at least, you utter prick.”

Lohere nodded, face still devoid of emotion. “Thank you for choosing to help me, Julian.”

“Is that what we’re calling your blackmailing me, now?”

The sorceress did not deign to respond to that, and Jaskier instead set about packing up his belongings and shrugging on his doublet. The sun had not yet risen, and Jaskier was implicitly thankful for his enhanced eyesight. If he’d had to stumble around the campsite, unable to make anything out as he packed his belongings, then this day would definitely have made the top three worst days he had ever had, and given that he had lived for decades longer than anyone thought and also was a witcher, that was saying something.

He managed to pack up and attach all of his belongings to Bollocks in record time, slipping his medallion into his doublet’s inside pocket when he was sure that Lohere couldn’t see him doing it. Don’t let the sorceress glean any useful information, and all that. Call him paranoid, but he was rather out of his element here, and carelessness was far more likely to kill him than overt carefulness.

“So, who do I need to murder to get you off my back?” Jaskier queried, projecting an air of cheeriness that he most certainly did not feel. “Because I’ll have you know, I do have somewhere to be after all the morally reprehensible acts you’ve conscripted me for.”

Lohere didn’t answer him, instead choosing to shoot him a sideways glance as she opened a portal. “I’d have thought you’d be more principled, Julian. You didn’t take very much convincing.”

“I spent a good quarter of a century trying to get myself enough coin for this glamour, I’m not about to let you destroy it in a fit of petulant rage. But I’m sure you knew that already.”

Hoping against hope that this wasn’t some kind of ploy to get him in a dungeon, Jaskier grabbed his horse’s reins and led her through the portal. Fuck, he really needed some kind of plan to get himself out of this mess and to Kaedwen within the two weeks he’d given himself. He hadn’t really accounted for getting accosted by random bloody sorceresses and portalled to who-only-knew-where when he was planning his journey.

Jaskier and poor Bollocks emerged from the portal in a large, stone room decorated with various tapestries - an atrium of some kind, then. It seemed like the kind of gaudy place that a sorceress would inhabit. Lohere emerged from the portal swiftly, striding past him and gesturing for him to follow.

The bard ignored the sudden queasiness in the pit of his stomach in favour of not looking like a weakling in front of the mage

Casting a look around to see if there was any indication for what he should do with Bollocks, and finding none, Jaskier shrugged and started after Lohere, horse still in tow.

Lohere glanced back to see if he was keeping up only once, raising a slight eyebrow at the continued presence of the horse, at which Jaskier shrugged once more. The sorceress did not seem to take issue with Bollocks’ continued presence, and Jaskier eventually had to leave her anyways, as they encountered a staircase - a tragically untraversable landscape for a horse.

Following Lohere up the stairs and into a little room filled with all manner of magical artefacts with an artificial spring in his step, Jaskier took stock of his surroundings. The view from the windows showed flat land, covered in forest, and a small village a little way down a cliff.

“Where are we?”

The inquiry was leisurely and amiable, and this time, the sorceress graced him with a reply. “Pocegodor. It’s still in Redania, don’t worry.”

“Doesn’t sound like a very Redanian name.”

“It’s not, the founder wasn’t from around here,” Lohere said, waving a hand dismissively. “But that’s neither here nor there. I need you to do a job for me, and then you may leave.”

Jaskier inclined his head, indicating for her to continue.

“I’m sure you’ve heard of the recent discovery of... shall we say, a rather sought-after ancient text, written by a mage many hundreds of years ago, containing knowledge thought to be long-lost.”

“I can’t say that I have, witch. My interest in the affairs of your lot is next to nonexistent.”

“A mighty shame,” Lohere said, in a tone of voice that all but emphasised her extreme disinterest in Jaskier’s opinions. “Either way, it was rediscovered recently, and many a party was sent on a quest to retrieve it. I’d tell you the full story, but impatient as you are, I suppose it comes down to the fact that two of the parties ended up making it to the book, and a fight broke out among them, killing our mutual friend and destroying the tome.”

“A true loss,” Jaskier bit out, sarcasm dripping from his tone.

“It rather was,” mused the sorceress. “But now, for your task. This all happened a few months ago, and the cad who murdered my associate and destroyed what was possibly the most valuable text on the continent, at the time, has evaded my attempts to deal with him most expertly. He plays the incompetent remarkably well, and has wormed his way into the protection of many a powerful man under the guise of a paranoid, if imbecilic, nobleman with money to throw around.”

“Sounds hilarious, for you to be continuously thwarted by someone playing the fool.”

“Make no mistake,” Lohere sniffed. “He is a very smart man, for all he acts an idiot. He projects such an utter lack of charisma that people think they’ve immediately sussed him out upon meeting, when in reality...”

“Is there a specific story there?”

“Only that he’s managed to stay one step ahead of every hired man I’ve sent after him, frustratingly enough.”

Jaskier raised an eyebrow. “So... what? You decide to hire a witcher to overwhelm him?”

“Precisely.”

“You do know we have a code of neutrality regarding human affairs, right? At least, my lot does. You should have gotten a Viper, or maybe a Cat. They wouldn’t object.”

“Ah, yes, the famous Griffin honour. You did seem to abandon it rather quickly, Julian. But you were the logical choice, you know - I don’t have to pay you.”

“Oh, come on- You’re blackmailing me!” Jaskier protested, throwing his arms up in a frustrated gesture. “There’s a difference between being honourable and throwing away decades of work and the life you’ve built for yourself to show that rude sorceress - who could probably kill you with magic anyways - who’s boss!”

Lohere snorted. “Don’t think I don’t know you won’t turn on me given the first sign of an opportunity, _witcher_. I know how your kind rationalises.”

“What do you mean, my kind?”

“Noble idiots like the Wolves and the Griffins. It won’t work out well for you, just look at what happened to the Butcher of Blaviken.”

Jaskier’s stomach dropped. He’d only really heard the rumours of what had happened - namely, that Geralt slaughtered a fair few people in the town square a decade or so ago - but if this sorceress was referencing that now...

“I also know, Julian of Kovir, that you won’t ask after it from me. You’ll not be wanting to go behind your travel companion’s back, I assume?”

Bloody fuck, had Lohere done her research.

Or maybe she’d just heard his songs.

Still, Jaskier merely smiled amiably. “Trying to get a story from Geralt is like pulling teeth from a wyvern. What happened?”

“A mage offered him a contract to kill a cursed girl. He refused, and ended up doing it anyways, but far less discreetly.”

“You’re so talkative, until you actually say something of interest,” Jaskier grumbled. “Go on then, Lohere. How do I find your mysterious murder-noble?”

“He’s with a friend of his in a safe-house near Ellander. He’ll be the one with the face of a boor and a scoundrel, but you’re to wipe them all out, Sir Witcher.”

“Can I get a name?”

Lohere pressed her lips together in a smile. “Oh, he uses so many aliases, I’m sure it wouldn’t matter.”

Jaskier rolled his eyes. “If you want me to kill him, at least _describe him_ , damn it!”

Grudgingly, Lohere did. His target, apparently, was a man with long, dark hair and narrow, watery-blue eyes, a description that was so pathetically lacking that Jaskier began to wonder if it was a requirement to be as vague as humanly possible if you wanted to get a witcher to do something. It was ridiculous - Lohere could have been describing half the men on the bloody continent.

The sorceress was, in addition to frustratingly cryptic, also apparently unwilling to waste the slightest bit of time. After having deemed the conversation with Jaskier to have gone on for long enough, she cut him off abruptly, and demanded that they move on.

At Lohere’s insistence, Jaskier had prepared to commit the murders she demanded of him at once.

He’d strapped his short swords and their scabbards to himself, and dressed in light, black clothing for the job, specifically not anything offered by the sorceress. If Jaskier was to double-cross her - and really, he had absolutely no intent to slaughter a man who’d pissed off a sorcerer, if anything, Jaskier should have been _thanking_ him for his service, he’d had enough encounters with arrogant mages to last a lifetime - he wouldn’t accept gifts from her with open arms. There were so many traps, so many little spells that could be woven into something as simple as a shirt.

No, Jaskier spent the last of his dwindling funds - why the _fuck_ had he blown all his coin getting shitfaced in Oxenfurt, again? - on his own assassin-like garb during a quick visit to Pocegodor. It was an investment, he told himself. It was an investment and a necessity, to prevent anyone from suspecting that a humble bard was the one attempting assassinations left and right this fine winter’s evening.

So there he stood, face covered by a simple, black mask, looking for all the world like a child’s caricature of an assassin, as he waited for Lohere to portal them to Ellander. Lohere had been most insistent on coming along - probably something to do with her trusting Jaskier about as far as she could throw him, which was fair enough and completely warranted.

It would make trying to get out of this whole mess without besmirching his vaguely-defined morals. Damn mages. Couldn’t they do their own dirty work for once?

The portal to Ellander - or rather, to the middle of some woods some way away from Ellander - was made before the sun had reached its zenith, and Jaskier, Bollocks, and Lohere were suddenly a fair distance from a building that Jaskier assumed was the safe-house. This time, Jaskier gave himself a few moments for the queasiness to settle before glancing to Lohere, who raised an eyebrow at him.

“Well? That’s the house. Go on, do your job, and I’ll leave you to your mundane business,” the sorceress said dismissively. “Believe me, I’m just as eager as you to have this over with.”

Jaskier raised an eyebrow. “Don’t you have a burning desire for revenge against this man, or something?”

“Not personally, witcher. Our mutual friend and I are both representatives of a powerful man, who did not take kindly to having his prize destroyed.”

“And you’re telling me this, why?”

“In case you get any ideas about turning your blade on me, Julian of Kovir. Now go.”

Jaskier snorted. “Of course, I wouldn’t want to anger your very powerful and extremely real boss, now, would I?”

Lohere rolled her eyes, almost imperceptibly.

At the sorceress’ gestured dismissal, Jaskier started towards the safe-house at a leisurely pace. This would have been far easier a feat to accomplish at night, but Lohere evidently cared not for the little details that were involved in an assassination.

The safe-house was designed to be hidden - it was buried in a copse of trees, looking for all the world like a simple stone cottage even to Jaskier’s suspicious eyes. Slinking through the shadows, sticking to the trees - and gods, it had been forever since Jaskier had done anything with such stealth - he made his approach with the utmost care.

He could hear, with his annoyingly sensitive ears that made performances just so much more _taxing_ , the faintest echoes of voices as he pressed himself to the wall. Evidently, the safe house stretched far below the ground.

That made sense - it was a nobleman’s refuge, after all. Of course it was going to be more sophisticated than a cabin in the woods.

Unfortunately for Jaskier, this made the safe house rather difficult for him to infiltrate - no windows, one sturdy door, and the bulk of the building being underground lent itself quite nicely to making the place rather more troublesome to enter. Not that that wasn’t the point of a safe house, but the bard allowed himself to be frustrated about it regardless - he didn’t want to be here in the first place.

Fuck, if he was killing anyone, he’d rather it be Lohere, the blackmailing bastard.

Still, he had to at least _pretend_ to be doing the job the sorceress wanted of him. His glamour was integral to his life, these days - one couldn’t exactly draw a crowd performing with a scarred witcher’s visage and piercing yellow eyes, after all - and, annoyingly enough, Lohere wasn’t exactly giving him enough time to plot against her.

There was something off about this, Jaskier realised, as he climbed onto the roof of the safe-house, where the wood, reinforced with stonework as it was, was far more likely to give under pressure than the wall, and was far more subtle a way in than the door. Trying the thick planks, he managed to dislodge one fairly quietly, though it was a strain even for his strength. There was something off about Lohere’s whole scheme. Surely, _surely_ it would be easier for a sorceress to simply end the man’s life herself? Pay off a Cat or a Viper, or even mind-control a witcher to do it instead of resorting to lowly blackmail?

Too, something else irked him. _I don’t have to pay you_ , she’d said. Had she run out of funding? How did a mage run out of money? Humans were more than willing to flock to them for magical solutions to their problems, Jaskier knew. It would have been so much simpler for here to hire a witcher willing to do anything for coin than to force the hand of someone as unwilling as Jaskier.

And then, there was the bluff of the supposedly powerful mage she worked for. What was with that?

Jaskier had no idea, but _something_ clearly wasn’t right.

He removed a section of the roof, requiring a surprising amount of strength to do so, and dropped through it, quiet as a mouse.

There was no sentry posted, and by the smell of things, Jaskier could make out that there were only three people occupying the safe-house, and that all three had been here for a while.

Oddly enough, there was something _familiar_ about one of the scents. Jaskier was sure he’d smelt it before, somewhere, but he couldn’t quite place it. It had been a recent thing, he was sure, but positive identification drifted just out of his reach. He knew this. He _knew_ this, damn it!

Sticking to the shadows cast by torches flickering in the draught, moving silently and swiftly, Jaskier followed the sounds of faint conversation deeper and deeper into the safe-house, deeper into the earth.

He happened upon the two men in a dimly lit corridor.

One of them, a portly man dressed in fine clothing, was talking animatedly about something Jaskier wasn’t listening to, because the other man - the other man, whose long black hair and narrow, pale blue eyes marked him as Jaskier’s target - the bard _recognised_.

He held himself with an unfamiliar air of authority, any hint of the personality Jaskier had come to expect from him vanished without a trace, and he suddenly understood what Lohere had meant, back in Pocegodor. His target carried himself with a decisive grace, and his gaze was steely and harsh, eyes calculating, and his demeanour was wholly undecipherable.

But Jaskier would know the man who was definitely not named Adam’s face anywhere, fresh in his mind as it was.

“-That damn sorceress!” The portly man was speaking, a touch of desperation to his tone. “Come on, old friend, it’s been three weeks since the last assassin she sent, and we know she’s getting desperate! We need to strike back!”

“No,” Adam said coldly. “If I’ve told you once, then I’ve told you a thousand times, so listen to me, damn it, for once in your pathetic little life. It was a mistake to kill the first mage, and I’ve absolutely no inclination to anger their merry band any further. Lohere will tire herself out eventually. Her coin has dwindled and her magic is weaker now than ever before, no doubt as a result of that asinine bargain she struck. It’s a game of waiting now, we’ve already won the fight. If you cock it up for me, my _friend_ , it won’t be any sorcerer you have to worry about.”

The man spluttered. “And let them win?”

“This is no war, damn it. My aim is to stay alive, and I’ve all but won on such a front.”

“You would fold before a sorceress?”

“I would rather live than sign my own death warrant for the sake of my pride, you imbecile!” Adam’s eyes were burning with cold fury as he turned his gaze upon his companion.

“Your pride? The mages have been hunting you like an animal!”

“And I have survived it. Is that not enough?”

"Ferrant de Lettenhove!" the portly man cried. "Are you out of your mind?"

Jaskier's stomach dropped at the exclamation, and he must have made a noise, because Adam - no, _Ferrant_ \- fixed his gaze upon him.

"Introduce me for our company, then, why don't you?" he snapped, coldly, at his friend, before turning to Jaskier. "I assume you're Lohere's latest attempt? I can't tell if I should be impressed or disappointed."

Jaskier wanted to reply, but his throat had closed up under the mask.

He put his hands up, instead, stepping out from the shadows.

“That’s a new one,” Ferrant said, observing Jaskier with keen interest. “Usually, I’d expect a tad bit more violence.”

Finding his voice, Jaskier spoke, putting on a thick Kaedweni accent. It wouldn’t do for anyone - _especially_ this man, to recognise his voice and join the dots. “You said Lohere was weak?”

Ferrant raised an eyebrow - and he really was a brilliant actor, Jaskier could see no trace of the persona of Adam in him at all - and his gaze bore into Jaskier intently, scrutinising him, _thinking_ , before finally speaking.

Truly, Ferrant de Lettenhove had played Jaskier for a fool back on their journey, too.

“Blackmail,” he said, with some finality. “Her coin has finally run out, then.”

The pieces all fit into place. Lohere was using Jaskier because he was a last resort. Her power was dwindling - she’d likely only entertained such a long conversation with him, only allowed him the trip into Pocegodor to recover her stamina to create another portal.

“What kind of deal did she strike?”

“Oh, just... promised her life to an arcane creature of some sort in exchange for power, and got duped. But that’s mages for you - never satisfied with what they have, and so, so arrogant,” Ferrant waved, shifting into a more conversational demeanour that put Jaskier on edge.

Jaskier hummed.

“Are you going to kill her?”

It was the portly man who spoke, then, earning a cold look from the man Jaskier was probably some kind of great-uncle of, which didn’t really bear thinking about, and interrupting the conversation.

Still, it was only polite to answer the question. Jaskier, at least, had manners. “Why should I? If she has no power, she is no longer a threat to me.”

“You’re just going to leave?” Ferrant drawled. “After breaking into my safe-house like this? You’re good, for a last resort. A little too good for me to be comfortable with.”

Fucking _great_. Was his entire bloodline biologically mandated to be full of utter douchebags?

“Are _you_ going to kill _me_ , then?” Jaskier sighed. “Because I would really rather you didn’t. I have places to be, after all, and Lohere has thrown my schedule off enough.”

“It’s nothing personal,” the noble assured him. “I simply would rather not find my throat being slit one night after failing to dispose of a threat.”

Jaskier groaned. Fuck this. Fuck every single little detail about this whole stupid situation. He just wanted to get to Kaedwen, damn it. He’d abandoned the Path specifically to _avoid_ this kind of wholly stressful situation.

“Why is this all suddenly on me? I didn’t even want to be here in the first place. Trust me, I have absolutely no inclination to come after you. I don’t _care_ about you,” the bard tried.

“And yet, I care a great deal about what you could do to me.”

Fucking great. Fucking brilliant. Fucking nobles, fucking mages, fucking _everything_. If he believed in Destiny, Jaskier would swear that it was trying to _annoy_ him back into being a witcher.

“Look, Mister de Lettenhove, I am absolutely sure that this is wholly unnecessary, so I’ll just take the opportunity to-”

And it was only his quick reflexes that allowed him to draw one of his short swords and parry the sword that swung down towards his shoulder from behind him.

The third person whose scent he’d smelt, of course. Of _course_.

Ferrant’s eyes narrowed in suspicion, looking at the weapon intently.

Brilliant. Jaskier really, really hoped he didn’t make the connection between the scavenging bard on the road Temeria and the masked figure currently regretting his entire existence in a safe-house near Ellander.

His attacker withdrew his sword, and struck again, doing nothing except giving Jaskier time to turn sideways, keeping both Ferrant and the third person in his peripheral vision as he parried once more, drawing his other sword.

At the end of the blade was a tall, lanky girl, her armour bearing the familiar Lettenhove crest. She held a longsword, and swung it with surety.

“Come _on_ ,” Jaskier ground out, making sure his false Kaedweni accent didn’t slip. “If you let me go, I swear on my sword arm that I’ll never bother you again. Ever.”

The girl simply slashed at Jaskier’ midriff, a strike which he ducked under, bending backwards, hands touching the floor for just a moment before he pushed off and rose again and twisted out of her range - just long enough for both the girl’s and Ferrant’s blades to slice through air above him, his unpleasant relative’s weapon aimed exactly where his neck would have been.

Two on one it was, then.

The girl moved with surety, with strength, and Ferrant’s posture - to Jaskier’s immense disappointment - did not feature the peacocking frivolities that most nobles fancied. Instead, his movements were practical, efficient.

Jaskier hated him already.

“You know, if you don’t stand down, I may have to kill you,” the bard said, dodging a diagonal downwards slash from the girl and stepping straight into the line of Ferrant’s blade, which he parried with ease before slashing at the girl’s abdomen with his other hand, moving his foot to snake behind her leg and _pull_ , unbalancing her.

The girl stumbled, but did not fall, though she did not manage to completely parry the short-sword, which she managed to push back only far enough that the cut Jaskier landed on her stomach was an inconvenience rather than a fatal blow. Jaskier ducked under the swipe she sent his way, recovering quickly, and caught Ferrant’s downwards slash between his two blades, forming an X-shape.

“Last chance to let me go,” Jaskier warned, pulling his short swords away from Ferrant’s blade and ducking low, slashing at their ankles in a wide, circular motion.

The girl dodged the move just about in time, but Ferrant wasn’t so lucky. The noble let out a hiss of pain as Jaskier’s sword cut into his calf.

The pair of them struck in tandem, aiming down before he could stand, and Jaskier caught both blades on his short swords, once again crossed, back parallel to the ground as his ascent was interrupted. Sensing an opportunity, Ferrant twisted his wrist, moving the end of his blade down and carving a neat gash into Jaskier’s stomach.

It was not a fatal would, especially not by witcher standards, but it was deep, and Jaskier let out a hiss as he pushed his blades up, shoving both enemy swords away from his flesh and giving him space to stand, stepping forwards and turning to keep his opponents in his sight.

That was that for taking the defensive, then. If this was a fight to the death, Jaskier was only too happy to oblige.

Not bothering to wait for either the girl or Ferrant to move, Jaskier launched himself towards the space behind the girl, swinging his left blade, the one closest to her, in a wide arc. His momentum and strength combined to give his strike enough force for his blade, when it hit its mark, to take the girl’s head off completely in a veritable fountain of red.

The bard landed, lightly as a cat, and Ferrant held his hands up, though not dropping his sword.

“I surrender,” the man bit out.

At least he could admit when he was beaten. Sighing, Jaskier motioned for him to drop his sword, not sheathing his own weapons even when he was sure that Ferrant’s hands were empty.

“You’ll leave me alone forever, then? No bounties on my pretty, mysterious head?”

“No,” Ferrant conceded, still eyeing Jaskier with that uncomfortable, calculating gaze of his. “What will you do about Lohere?”

The bard’s brow furrowed as he considered his options. “Kill her before she can spread the word about my sensitive spot, I suppose.”

“You’ll end up with sorcerers hounding you.”

“That sounds very much like a problem for tomorrow,”

“Suit yourself,” the noble said, eyeing the bloodied corpse of his guard on the floor.

Jaskier debated nicking the sword off the girl’s corpse, before deciding against it - it would certainly blow his cover if he started carrying it around - and retraced his steps before the coppery tang of blood overwhelmed his senses too much.

He all but ran out of the safe-house, only slowing when it came time to hoist himself out through the hole he’d made in the roof. Hopefully, he would never have to cross paths with Ferrant again.

It seemed, too, that Lohere’s information was a bit out of date. Jaskier remembered the man’s so-called _idiot posse_ \- they’d been felled by assassins before the winter, he’d been there. Apparently, she did not keep as sharp an eye on things as she wanted Jaskier to think - not if the bard knew better what had befallen the motley crew than she did.

Harbouring no doubt that his hands would be slick with blood that was not his own before the day was over, Jaskier ambled over to where Lohere sat, exactly where he’d left her. Seated beside Bollocks, some way away from the safe-house.

He caught her eyes as she approached, glittering green meeting cornflower blue. She didn’t speak until he was close, standing before her, the girl’s blood still coating one of the blades he held.

“Is he dead?”

“Who, Ferrant de Lettenhove? Sure,” Jaskier said, finally dropping the accent.

“And his men?”

“Also dead,” the bard said, and that one wasn’t even a lie! It simply hadn’t been by his hand, but that was on a need-to-know basis. And Lohere didn’t need to know.

Lohere smiled. “Thank you, Julian. I knew you’d come through for me.”

Jaskier returned her grin. “Now, we just have one tiny thing to discuss.”

“Oh?”

“Why you lied to me.”

Lohere froze. “What do you mean, lied to you?”

“I mean,” Jaskier said, loftily, “exactly what I said. You conscripted me under false pretences. I’ve no idea why I couldn’t call your bluff earlier, to be honest. I thought I’d gotten rid of the hangover by that point, but oh well.”

“Hang on, Julian-”

She was cut off by the sudden presence of Jaskier’s clean sword through her throat. A small, choking noise escaped the sorceress, and Jaskier looked down at her with merciless eyes.

“Sorry, Lohere,” he said. “But I can’t have you gossiping about me.”

Instead of withdrawing his sword, Jaskier wrenched it upwards, a resounding cracking sound ringing out as the sorceress’ neck and head were forced back, almost at a right angle. Skin, muscle, and bone tore to accommodate the movement, and warm, red blood bubbled out of Lohere’s gaping throat.

It wasn’t as cruel as it looked, Jaskier was sure. And if it was... Well. She shouldn’t have gotten involved in Jaskier’s affairs if she wasn’t prepared to deal with Jaskier himself.

Not giving the body of the _second_ person he’d killed that day another thought, Jaskier hoisted himself up into his horse’s saddle, suddenly and painfully aware of the gash in his stomach. It could wait, until they were far enough away from the safe-house near Ellander than Ferrant de Lettenhove would not accidentally stumble upon him whilst he was enjoying his newfound freedom.

Blood had begun to seep into his shirt, stained black by monster ichor - he’d had to use Axii on the vendor back in Pocegodor to even begin to be able to afford it - but Jaskier couldn’t make it out, so the shirt would probably be fine. He had to admit, that was a nice change from his usual routine. The _one little mishap and it’s ruined_ routine of his usual fine clothing did begin to get a bit annoying - he could only buy so many new clothes, and the Path was not kind to them. Of course, he’d have to repair the good-sized hole Ferrant had created in it, but it was completely salvageable.

He pulled off his shirt along with the mask, lest his wound scabbed around the fabric, and shoved both of the garments into one of his saddle-bags at random, before nudging his horse forwards. Bollocks sped forwards, and Jaskier steered her neatly in what was almost certainly the direction of Kaedwen, towards Kaer Morhen. If there was one good thing to come out of this, then it was most certainly the fact that Lohere’s portalling had actually gotten him a small bit closer to his destination, even if he did have to cross the Pontar _again_.

Jaskier’s wound was still bleeding when he came across the river - sooner than anticipated, apparently the safe house was a bit further north of Ellander than he’d originally thought - and he stopped on the banks. Hopefully, he could make use of the river water to clean off, as well as taking a break to stitch up his wound.

He was very glad he’d stocked up as if he was expecting to walk the Path again, back in Oxenfurt. He didn’t much fancy a dirty, Lettenhove-style infection in his abdomen when he had no coin to pay for a healer.

Rummaging around in his pack, he found what he was looking for - a small first aid kit, intended for use on wounds he didn’t want to draw Geralt’s attention to. Otherwise, he was perfectly happy to pilfer from Geralt’s supplies.

He uncorked a bottle - just alcohol, not a potion - and started to disinfect his wound. Honey was cheaper, yes, but also so _sticky_ , so Jaskier figured he’d make the sacrifice and pay extra for alcohol - vodka, specifically. It was a beautiful compromise, it could tend to all sorts of injuries - he could use it to disinfect the physical ones, and, if it was a mental wound, he could simply down it.

Jaskier rationed the vodka as best he could - he had no coin left, no way to replenish his supplies for the foreseeable future - and, once he was satisfied that his wound would not be getting infected any time soon, he threaded a needle and began to stitch his wound.

He’d become far too accustomed to the feeling even as a small child at Kaer Seren, and, while he still couldn’t suture a stitch as neatly as Coën, whose hands were almost ridiculously steady, he’d had a fair bit of practice with the craft, and he fell into the familiar movement easily enough, needle and thread slipping neatly through skin.

He sewed his shirt as well, while he was at it, and washed both it, his swords, and himself clean of blood in the icy Pontar - it made sense to take advantage of what was in front of him there and then, even if it was highly uncomfortable.

Jaskier had spent the morning _murdering_ , for crying out loud - the last thing he wanted to do was also freeze his arse off in an icy river. However, the bard was no stranger to sacrifice, and he figured that braving the freezing waters was preferable than spending the next week or so trying desperately to get the bloodstains out of all his belongings.

He settled into a comfortable routine after that - he’d ride during the day and made camp at night, singing all the songs that betrayed his origins to his horse in front of a crackling fire, hunting for food, and trying his hand at cooking increasingly complicated meals and inevitably failing.

It was a comfortable routine, but a dull one, and by the time he reached the last village before the road turned into the barely-trodden path that led to Kaer Morhen, Jaskier was craving someone - anyone - to talk to. He played at a tavern most nights, scraped together a small amount of coin that wasn’t enough to spend on a room if he’d wanted to, and ended up camping by the foot of the mountains every night.

And to think, he’d worried that the whole sorceress thing would make him _late_ to Kaedwen.

Spring had barely arrived, the snow only starting to melt, when Jaskier encountered the first witcher departing Kaer Morhen. He was sitting on a rock by the dirt path, strumming an old song - it was one about a particularly rowdy Griffin witcher that Jaskier knew was long-dead, one of the ones that he didn’t dare sing the words to in public - when the man, riding a horse well-laden with supplies, passed by him.

His first thought was to realise that this was not Geralt.

His second thought was to call out to him anyways.

“Hello!”

The witcher glared at him, and Jaskier gave him a tiny wave.

Silence followed, a silence that seemed to stretch for all eternity. Then, the witcher spoke.

“What do you want?”

“To say hi,” Jaskier shrugged. “I’m lonely.”

A scoff. “That sounds like your problem, then, not mine.”

“It is. But you stumbled into me, and consequently also my problem, so you’re involved now.”

The witcher turned to leave, but Jaskier stood, placing Filavandrel’s lute gently on the ground, and moved to intercept him. “I’m Jaskier, by the way, what’s your name?”

“ _Jaskier_. Did you pick that out yourself, bard?”

“I did!” Jaskier chirped, pointedly ignoring the mocking tone that accompanied the unknown man’s words. “Do you like it?”

“No.”

“There’s no accounting for taste, then, I suppose,” Jaskier shrugged, acutely aware that this was probably a tad bit rude, but then again, the man had also been less than cordial to the bard. “You didn’t answer my question, by the way, and I’m afraid if you don’t tell me your name I’m going to have to start guessing.”

The witcher scoffed at him, clearly not amused, and Jaskier smiled in a vaguely threatening manner - a look that, he knew, was highly ineffectual on a bard’s smooth face.

“Is it Sourpuss?” Jaskier tried, earning himself a ferocious glare. “What? I wouldn’t have to guess if you just _told_ me.”

“Shut it, bard.”

“Right, not Sourpuss then. Then how about Dick? Short for Richard, of course.”

A throaty growl emerged from the witcher’s throat. Evidently, Jaskier was getting on his nerves. He wondered, briefly, if he could annoy the witcher into some kind of camaraderie, before deciding against it - a little because it would be rude, but also because he didn’t need two whole Geralts at the same time.

“If I tell you, will you fuck off?”

How rude.

Still, Jaskier did have a more important matter to attend to in the coming few days - and that important matter had white hair and spoke mainly in grunts, hums, and swear words, with the occasional growled _Jaskier_ thrown in, too - so the bard could grant this second surly witcher reprieve from him charms.

For now.

“Alright, Dicky,” Jaskier said, cheerily.

“It’s Lambert,” the witcher growled. “Now stop blocking my horse.”

“As you wish, Dicky- sorry, _Lambert_.”

With a wink and a grin, Jaskier stepped neatly out of Lambert’s way, and the witcher rode off after shooting Jaskier one last glare.

He probably thought that that was the last he’d see of the bard.

Jaskier was looking forward to their reunion.

Lambert rode off quickly, not looking back, and Jaskier returned to his lute. Bollocks was grazing somewhere a little ways off the track, but she’d proven herself a loyal creature, always ready to come at Jaskier’s call, and so he was happy to leave the horse to her own devices. Within a minute, he’d already fallen back into aimless strumming, circling back through all those old melodies that he didn’t play anymore. He missed them.

He blamed his overwhelming focus, to engrossed in his music, for the fact that he didn’t hear Geralt approaching.

“Jaskier.” The familiar grunting voice cut through Jaskier’s reverie, music coming to a sudden halt as he looked up and focused on the witcher, mounted neatly atop Roach.

“Geralt!”

“What are you doing here?”

“Waiting for you, what do you think? How am I to sing of your heroic exploits if you’ve fucked off to... To the gods only know where, really, _without_ me?” Jaskier’s face was a mask of teasing hurt, but judging by Geralt’s furrowed brow, he either didn’t register the _teasing_ part or didn’t care.

“How long have you been here?”

It seemed that the White Wolf felt particularly verbose that day, if he was carrying on such a long conversation unprompted.

Or maybe he just wanted to get Jaskier to confess to stalking him, so that he could properly berate the bard.

“Few days, give or take,” Jaskier shrugged. “I rode out from Oxenfurt not long ago. And before you ask, I knew where to come because, despite your best efforts to never answer me anything, I do know what Kaer Morhen is and where to find it.”

“Never told you I was going to Kaer Morhen.”

The bard scoffed. “It was hardly a stretch to guess. You said you wanted to spend winter in Kaedwen and told me to fuck off - and you don’t seem like the type to keep long-term friends who’d let you hole up with them for a whole season. Occam’s Razor, and all that.”

Geralt merely grunted.

Jaskier grinned. “Give me a second to grab my belongings, and then we can be off.”

The White Wolf didn’t respond, which Jaskier took as an acknowledgement. Slipping Filavandrel’s lute gently into its case before hoisting it onto his back, he turned towards the edge of the road and shouted, loudly.

“Bollocks!”

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Geralt mouth the word, incredulous, an expression that he tried to hide but only became more intense as Jaskier’s mare galloped into view.

“You named your horse Bollocks,” Geralt said flatly.

“Ah. Well. Not exactly,” Jaskier clarified, as he hoisted himself into his saddle. “You see, it went like this - I was in Oxenfurt for the winter, meeting up with some of my old acquaintances, and they invited me out for a drink. I’d just bought a horse, and I mentioned as much, and they all felt that it would be ridiculously funny to train her to respond to something absolutely asinine and stupid.”

“Hmm,” Geralt mused, and Jaskier could feel the scepticism emanating from him even at such a distance.

“Geralt of Rivia! You really think I’d curse such a magnificent creature with such a crude name?”

At Geralt’s slight smile, Jaskier threw his hands up in fraught betrayal. “No. I don’t believe you. I will not entertain such falsehoods from a man who told me he was from Rivia just to shut me up in the middle of a perfectly nice conversation! You’re not of Rivia! And don’t try to deny it, I followed up on my suspicions over the winter. You’ve been there precisely _twice_ \- I _checked_. Your exploits are remarkably well-documented, you know.”

The white-haired witcher snorted. “So you figured. At least when I lie, it’s concise, though, Jaskier. Besides, most witchers aren’t from the places they say they’re from.”

“I know _that_ ,” Jaskier said, pointedly ignoring Geralt’s raised eyebrow and hastily amending his statement. “What? Lots of people do it, in all kinds of professions - that shit-weasel Valdo Marx is as much from Cidaris as I’m from Nilfgaard! But it’s not my fault for being duped, you have the _accent_.”

Geralt offered a noncommittal hum.

“That got me thinking, Geralt Not of Rivia - why do you have the accent if you’re not actually of Rivia? And it led me to the conclusion that, to be more convincing, you _learnt the Rivian accent_ for the sake of the name. And I’d get it, if it was something like... Like Cintra, or somewhere similar, but Rivia? Rivia’s a _shithole_ , Geralt!”

“It makes sense with the name.”

“I’ll bet it does,” Jaskier griped. “But nobody else does that! No one takes the accent!”

“Or maybe you’re just a shit actor, Jaskier of _Metinna_ ,” Geralt returned, much to Jaskier’s offence.

“Geralt!”

Jaskier’s indignant squawk was enough to draw a smile from the normally surly witcher, though, so he would take the insult with grace. Geralt seemed to be in an unusually good mood.

“So, how was your winter, Geralt?” Jaskier tried, changing the subject gracelessly. Geralt noticed this - of course it was _now_ that the man became perceptive, that made perfect sense - and smirked.

“Good,” he grunted. “Yours?”

Oh, sweet Melitele. Geralt of Rivia, asking after Jaskier? He wasn’t even mortally wounded! The bard would be sure to treasure this moment forever.

“It would have been great, I assume, if I could remember most of it,” Jaskier grinned. “Bards are not a sober bunch.”

Geralt huffed.

“So, Geralt Not of Rivia, my good friend, where are we headed to?”

“Not your friend,” Geralt grunted, and just like that, the mood was soured slightly, again. It was as if a switch had been flicked, the man’s oddly amiable but welcome teasing dissipating at the drop of a hat, replaced with the familiar, dismissive stoicism that Jaskier had grown accustomed to.

Was it something he’d said?

“Are we going north? South? Or maybe just forwards, wherever the road takes us?” Jaskier said, falling back into their customary routine of talking enough for the both of them. “I heard that there’s lots of work in Temeria around this time of year, maybe we should head there? I’d say we could go north towards Kovir, but it’s always so _cold_ there, and-”

“North,” Geralt grunted, and Jaskier sincerely hoped that had been his plan all along, because if he decided on that direction simply to spite Jaskier, the bard would... Well. His feelings would be very hurt, if that was the case.

Jaskier chattered about nothing as they rode - talking about everything mundane he could think of, from the colour of the sky to the texture of the road and how unbearably ugly the architecture of Kaedwen was, keeping up a steady stream of chatter until nightfall, when they stopped in a village near the Gwenllech river - a village that, upon being greeted with Geralt’s mildly intimidating visage, immediately had its inhabitants vying for Geralt’s attention about a contract for a griffin.

A griffin. How poetic. Jaskier would have appreciated the coincidence a tad more, if the villagers weren’t currently insisting that the witcher slay the beast at that very moment, uncaring that it was night and that the man had been travelling all morning.

Really, that was just rude.

Jaskier tried to intervene of Geralt’s behalf, making excuses for him, and trying to talk the villagers into letting the man rest first - it would be so much easier, he reasoned, for him to take down a griffin well-rested - but they were having none of it.

And that was how Jaskier found himself trailing behind a grudging Geralt, horses left nearby, just far enough away that they wouldn’t get caught up in the fight, as Geralt tried his very best to order the bard to stay with the horses and out of his way.

Picking his way through the forest with easy grace, a few paces behind his companion, Jaskier did what he did best - completely disregard Geralt’s instructions.

“So, a griffin,” he said, keeping his voice just quiet enough to be unobtrusive and just loud enough to be annoying. “I simply must write a song about one of those! Hey, Geralt, what rhymes with _griffin_? Oh, absolutely bloody nothing, that’s what. _Spiffin_ ’? No, that wouldn’t work.”

“Shut up,” Geralt hissed, holding his silver sword firmly in his hand. “And stay _back_ , bard.”

“Alright, alright,” Jaskier shrugged, doing absolutely nothing to change the situation.

“ _Jaskier_.”

“Isn’t that the griffin, by the way?”

Geralt’s eyes locked onto the shape Jaskier gestured at, and swore under his breath, steeling himself for the inevitable attack.

The griffin charged, and Geralt’s sword swung up to meet it, cutting a gash across the creature’s chest. Jaskier furrowed his brow at Geralt’s chosen brute-force tactic - he would have dodged the charge, instead, and attacked the beast from an angle it couldn’t defend from.

Still, the tactic seemed to work well enough for Geralt, as he seemed fairly unbothered by the massive fucking griffin that had just barrelled into his sword. Not waiting for it to move, Geralt slashed at it again, but only managed to nick the creature’s vast chest this time, as it reared back from the swinging blade before it could do any real damage.

That was always annoying.

Geralt pressed forward, striking diagonally at one of the griffin’s legs - why a frontal assault? Jaskier winced as Geralt was forced to dodge the griffin’s beak as it bore down upon him, though still managing to cut the creature’s leg enough for it to screech in pain.

Was the ridiculous favouring of frontal assaults just a Geralt thing, or a Wolf School thing? Erland had trained him and the other Griffin Witchers to attack from all angles, taking advantage of an opponent’s blind spots and presenting less of a target.

Personally, Jaskier thought that that was the superior method, but what worked for Geralt worked for Geralt, even if it was horridly inefficient. There was a reason Geralt was lauded as one of the most notorious witchers on the continent - a reason other than _Toss a Coin_ \- and it was in part thanks to his competence.

Rigidity and all, Jaskier was fairly certain he’d last about two minutes in a fight against the man. His strikes were strong, and sure - and to be able to block a _griffin_ was a feat Jaskier would not even dare to attempt.

Jaskier eyed the fight lazily, watching as Geralt advanced against the griffin, landing strategically placed strikes that carved large gashes into the griffin’s skin, weakening and slowing it. His mind, by now, was elsewhere, trying to work the moonlit fight into a series of metaphors, and brainstorming chord progressions.

Geralt was more than a match for the griffin, which was perhaps why it caught Jaskier so completely off-guard when he heard the witcher yell. His attention was once again fixed on the White Wolf, expecting him to have made some kind of false move but finding him completely unhurt, the blood he could smell was definitely the griffin’s and not Geralt’s - Jaskier was not expecting the injured creature to blindside _him_ and send him flying and it crashed into the idling bard.

He barely had time to think of a sufficiently colourful curse before the stinging whip of pain in his abdomen caught up with him - of bloody _course_ he’d rip his stitches wide open, why wouldn’t he! He’d thought they were healed enough, but apparently not so.

And then he crashed into the forest floor and skidded over a protruding tree root.

That was most certainly not making it into the ballad.

Jaskier recovered from the fall swiftly enough, pulling himself up into a sitting position just in time to see Geralt’s sword slice through the griffin’s neck, the witcher giving his fallen prey barely a second glance before swiftly striding over towards Jaskier, face shadowed with a hint of concern that, a few short months ago, Jaskier wouldn’t even have even noticed was there. He was getting better at reading the witcher, he realised, with some satisfaction.

“Jaskier,” Geralt said, gripping the bard gently by the shoulders.

Shit. This probably wasn’t the kind of thing a human would be able to shrug off... or most likely even survive, come to think of it. Jaskier hadn’t even broken a rib. Should he fake a concussion?

No. That would be cruel.

“I’m fine,” Jaskier huffed weakly.

“You’re bleeding.”

“Not a lot.”

“Let me see,” Geralt pressed, gentler than Jaskier had ever seen him.

“It’s fine.”

“Jaskier. Let me see.”

“You’re such a mother hen,” the bard declared, rolling his eyes, but lifted his chemise all the same.

Geralt’s eyes widened. “This has been stitched before.”

“Yeah, I got stabbed, slightly,” Jaskier grinned. “Bit of a disagreement with an old acquaintance.”

“We’ll need to stitch it again. Take that off, and don’t move.”

“Should I take it off, or not move?”

“Jaskier.”

“Alright! Alright, I’m taking it off,” Jaskier said, surrendering to Geralt’s glare as the witcher glanced back at him, having left to grab supplies to stitch the bard’s abdomen back together again. He shrugged off his doublet and peeled off his chemise with care, trying not to smear the blood that had begun to seep into the fabric anywhere else.

He was bleeding far, far too slowly, still - he really had overpaid for the damn glamour - but hopefully, it wasn’t too noticeable this time. In all likelihood, Geralt would be far more likely to assume that the wound was simply not that deep than jump to the conclusion that Jaskier was secretly a witcher.

Returning with the horses, because apparently that was easier than just grabbing the supplies, Geralt kneeled down in front of Jaskier and prepared to tend to his wounds.

“I can do this myself, you know,” Jaskier grinned, as Geralt began to clean the open gash, and set about removing the old thread that now lay, ineffectually, in what was once again a gaping wound in Jaskier’s stomach.

He’d sewn it up so neatly, too.

“You’re a bard,” Geralt said flatly. “When have you ever stitched a wound?”

“I’ll have you know, I have been injured before!”

Geralt hummed, as he threaded a needle to stitch the laceration to Jaskier’s abdomen - again. It really was so rude of the griffin, he’d been so careful with his stitches, making sure they were absolutely, perfectly neat and straight. Far neater, in fact, than what Geralt was currently doing - now, there was a man who prioritised efficacy over aesthetic.

“Can’t you be a bit neater about it, Geralt? I mean, I am going to be wearing this on my skin for the rest of my life, and I’d appreciate you _not_ making a complete and utter hash of it.”

Geralt’s brow was furrowed, and he had a look of concentration far beyond what was needed for his current task. He paid no heed to Jaskier’s complaints.

The bard continued to whine. “Geralt! You’re doing it all crooked!”

Still, the witcher paid no heed to the his chatter, which perturbed Jaskier. Usually, he got at least a dismissive hum or a grunt, or _something_ , but Geralt simply finished stitching the gash in silence.

Brow still furrowed, his sharp, yellow eyes met Jaskier’s blue, before his gaze drifted down to the bard’s left shoulder.

His exposed, unmarred shoulder.

Oh, _fuck_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :)
> 
> The chapter title of ch7 makes marginally more sense now, right? Right? _Right?_ *sobs in plot twist*
> 
> Lohere (i say it low-hear because Why Not?) is an anglicisation of the hungarian word _lóhere_ (‘lore-herr-e’, long o, short es, in case you want to know the full extent of my crimes of pronunciation against the unfortunate language), meaning clover/shamrock - idk I’m not a botanist - but can also be literally translated to Horse Testicle.
> 
> Pocegodor comes from pöcegödör, all short vowel sounds, and it basically means shithole :)
> 
> You have no idea how hard I had to think about writing all the horse-riding scenes so that it doesn’t accidentally sound like really weird porn. Bollocks as a horse name is all fun and games until someone has to ride the horse
> 
> Ferrant feels so OOC I’m sorry whoops


	10. Trial and Error

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was spring at Kaer Seren.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, i know, i know it gets really old when I complain about my writing but i think we can unanimously agree that vomiting out 10k words of Nothing after the cliffhanger i left you with last chapter is the furthest thing from a sound decision
> 
>  **Also!!** A few people asked about the shoulder - i thought it was a bit clearer than it evidently is, but basically it’s a reference to the arrow wound Jaskier received in chapter 7 against the assassins (the one that he had Geralt cauterise), and Geralt was expecting to see the scar from that but it was hidden by the glamour.
> 
> Anyways enjoy... whatever vague chapter-shaped oddity is dhjfhsakjfhk
> 
> I’m sorry for the excess of poetry, i had a shit week

The strumming of chords had become a constant sound in the keep over the winter, with Julian slipping into Rook’s quarters to borrow his lute whenever he had a few minutes to spare. The halls of Kaer Seren echoed with the twanging of strings more often than not, as Julian made use of his limited free time to attempt mastery of the instrument - a feat that proved to be rather more difficult than expected without a teacher - and it seemed that the keep had grudgingly accepted that the boy would not, in fact, grow bored of the lute.

Even if he did get a few looks every time he bumped into one of the witchers whose quarters were not out of range of the sound of his late-night strumming - that was, to say, most of them.

He had expected Rook to take the instrument with him, come spring, given that it belonged to him in the first place, and he admittedly enjoyed playing, but, much to Julian’s surprise, he’d woken up one morning in the early spring to a fully-geared Rook, complete with weaponry, standing outside his and Coën’s room with the lute, saying that he would be able to acquire another on the Path, somewhere. Julian, on the other hand, was not allowed to leave the keep, Rook had reasoned, so it was only logical that the boy keep the instrument.

If Julian had tackled the man in a hug right there and then... Well, nobody had to know.

The keep once again fell silent - or at the very least quieter, no place containing Julian would ever be completely silent for any amount of time - as the snow thawed, and the Koviri mountains once again grew safe to traverse. The familiar rhythm of the daily routine that they kept to, of training and study, seemed to be much more boring and monotonous when Kaer Seren was so empty. It was suffocatingly boring - Julian considered that perhaps, Erland should take more students on simply to fill the damn keep up a little bit.

Sure, perhaps the fact that there were only two witchers there to teach - and had been, ever since a nebulous but undoubtedly tragic event that Julian had not yet managed to pry from any of his fellows - but that could be remedied, if Erland deemed it something that he wanted to remedy in the first place.

Who knew why he hadn’t? Probably Keldar, in all honesty, but Julian likely never would. It wasn’t done to question the personal decisions of the Griffin Grandmaster.

And, despite his love of crossing boundaries, he wouldn’t pry into the matter. Whatever had occurred to reduce the School of the Griffin from a flourishing school run by hundreds of witchers to... well, _this_... It was likely not a pleasant event, and Julian _did_ have some understanding of tact, to the astonishment of likely everyone who knew him.

Still, it was something to ponder, and ponder Julian did.

It was beginning to drive Coën mad, he could tell - his friend had almost begged him to please experiment with the lute instead of _pondering the history of the School of the Griffin_ , because by the gods, he needed _something_ to ground him in reality lest he start believing he’d died training one day and his current life was all a cruel illusion.

In response, Julian had begun composing a song, to see if he could get Coën to regret such a declaration.

“The chords are too close.”

Julian quirked an eyebrow. “So now you’re a musician, Coën?”

“Funny. No, I just have functioning pair of ears and a brain. They’re too close together.”

“Alright, alright, I’ll move it up a little. Though Melitele only knows how I’ll do that,” Julian said, thinking back. Back to Lettenhove, where he’d once watched a minstrel strum a lute, when he’d been young and naïve enough to think that his life was going to be a beautiful one. The memory was faded, tempered by age. Even as young as Julian was, he’d met the minstrel so long ago, before Kaer Seren, before... Well. Before everything.

The man had been jaunty and amiable, plucking out increasingly more complicated tunes at Julian’s behest, and chattering to him about music theory, simplified for his barely four-year-old audience. It had been a nice memory, one of the few that he had from back before everything had gone down a rather different path than was expected, and one of the only ones that didn’t contain the Viscount.

Still, now that he thought about it, he was vaguely aware that the minstrel had said something about chords along the line of what Coën had just mentioned, so he decided to take the advice on board.

Either that, or Julian had begun to make things up and misremember, but either way, he shifted his grip on the lute, and the new chord that rang out seemed much more fitting. The tune was more... smooth, the melancholy notes of the chords flowing in a much more natural manner.

“See?”

“Shut up, Coën,” Julian glowered, though there was a fond undertone to his voice.

“That’s a cheery tune. Got any lyrics to go with it?”

“As a matter of fact, I do!”

“Let’s hear them then.”

“Okay. It’s allegorical, by the way, so-”

Coën snorted. “Yes, yes, I know, you’re using a story about an evil noble and a hapless bard to tell your father to fuck off without actually saying it. I have heard your muttering, you know - I just thought you’d go with something about Keldar, first.”

“And have my first composition be about something so utterly mundane as _Keldar_? Coën, my good friend, you wound me.”

The raven-haired boy grinned and raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. “My bad. Let’s hear it, then.”

Julian launched into song, a tad haltingly, stopping every time he hit a false note, but Coën didn’t comment. The melody was simplistic and repetitive, the same few chords repeating on the lute. His voice was uncertain, wavering - it was always hit or miss whether he actually managed to hit the right note - but he stumbled over the awkward lyrics coherently enough for the most part.

_There once was a noble_

_Held in high regard_

_Why would he want to_

_Trick a young bard?_

_He was well-esteemed_

_And he had songs to his name_

_That praised all his deeds_

_And his person the same_

_He spoke honeyed words_

_And he hid his intent_

_So when he said “Come, boy!”_

_Unfaltering, I went._

_And when I went with him_

_Believing his lie_

_I did not expect him_

_To take me to die._

Julian halted, furrowing his brow as the last note echoed around the room. “That’s pretty much where I got up to.”

Furrowing his brow, Coën considered the song. “It’s not bad, but you start too many sentences with and. And your syllable count is off in a few places.”

“Hah!” Julian stood and made his way over to his corner - or rather, the corner he kept his belongings in, given that the empty room they’d inhabited proved resistant in nature to their attempts to acquire some kind of cupboard or other storage item - and gathered a small sheath of parchment. “Well, I’m sure I can rise above such terrible missteps with the assistance of the great Coën!”

The boy in question raised an eyebrow. “I’m no wordsmith, Julian.”

“You taught me most every swear word I know!”

“Because you were, what, seven? You were seven and you didn’t know them yet. It’s hardly a sign of a loquacious vocabulary.”

“You can’t use the word _loquacious_ to describe your vocabulary whilst denying your verbosity and expect me to take that at all seriously, you know.”

“Alright, just don’t blame me if your song turns out shit.”

Julian snorted. “I do reserve the right to veto any terrible decisions, Coën, don’t worry.”

“As expected of the... what was it? Baron de Lettenhove?”

“Flatterer. It’s Viscount. Or, technically only the viscount’s son... Maybe not even that. Does being a witcher automatically strip you of your birthright, or, if I were to go back and proclaim myself not dead, do you think I could reclaim it?”

Julian’s tone was light, joking, but there was a bitter undercurrent to his words, and Coën winced upon hearing it.

“Sorry.”

“Hm?”

“About bringing it up. Let’s not sour the mood, here, Julek. Show me those lyrics.”

Obligingly, Julian offered the parchment, and his friend took it, making a big show of squinting at Julian’s chicken-scratch, and earning an indignant, if amused, squawk from his friend, along with some paltry defences of his handwriting - something about protecting witcher secrets from run-of-the-mill bandits.

“It’s hardly a code if it’s impossible to decipher a meaning, Julek. It’s just nonsense, in that case.”

“You’re _rude_.”

Coën smiled. “I had an excellent teacher in that regard.”

He received a brilliant smirk in response.

The lyrics themselves - insofar as Coën could make them out, hindered as he was both by the dark and Julian’s script - were scrawled on the parchment exactly as he had sung them. Frowning, Julian’s gaze darted between his friend and the paper as he waited for him to say something.

“The _why would he want to trick a young bard_ bit is a bit clunky,” Coën said, finally. “ _He was well-esteemed and he had songs to his name_ just needs to go, I don’t know what you were thinking, and the rest is alright, I think.”

Julian’s brow furrowed, yellow eyes glinting in the dim moonlight. “Fuck, am I going to end up having to rewrite this every few weeks?”

“You’d do that anyways,” Coën grinned.

“How about _what did he do, then_ instead of _why would he want to_?”

“Sounds good. Maybe use mislead instead of trick?”

“The words in that line are short for dramatic effect, you boorish illiterate.”

“Illiterate is an adjective.”

“Which can _also_ be a noun, so fuck off, Coën.”

“Fucking off.”

“Do you have anything to write with?”

Coën frowned. “Don’t you?”

“I had this shit charcoal pencil that i nicked from Keldar, up until it snapped in half. And then the halves snapped in half. But that was more to do with me being mad that it snapped in half in the first place.”

“Well then,” Coën sighed. “I guess you’ll be writing with little pencil stumps, then.”

Julian huffed.

Gingerly lifting the charcoal stump to the parchment, he proceeded to edit his text, changing the lines that they’d discussed with the utmost care and precision. It was almost admirable, the effort he put into immortalising the lyrics in such an illegible scrawl.

 _He was well esteemed fell out_ , in favour of being replaced with another reiteration of _there once was a noble_ \- because repetition was a valid literary technique, thank you very much, Coën - and replaced the _and he_ in the following line, favouring a simple _with_ , correcting the issue of syllable count and monotonous reiteration in one fell swoop.

“Make _believing his lie_ into something fancier,” Coën said, almost absently.

Careful fingers, trying not to smudge the writing, danced over the paper, making a few more corrections and editing, before Julian tried to sing the lyrics out loud again.

_There once was a noble_

_Held in high regard_

_What would he do, then_

_To trick a young bard?_

_There once was a noble_

_With songs to his name_

_That praised all his deeds_

_And his person the same_

_He spoke honeyed words_

_As he hid his intent_

_So when he said “Come, boy!”_

_Unfaltering, I went._

_And when I went with him_

_With faith in his lie_

_I did not expect him_

_To take me to die._

The lute joined the song halfway through, almost as an afterthought, as Julian fell deeper into his performance. By the end, he was barely faltering - the improved flow of the words no doubt aiding his timing of the lyrics.

Humming, Coën nodded his approval. “Good. Now you just have to finish it.”

A grin, as Julian leant back atop the blankets, clutching Rook’s lute to his chest. “Speak not of the future, my good friend - the here and now should take priority.”

“Is that Julek-speak for _I’m a lazy bastard?_ ”

“Might be.”

“Have you abandoned clinging to me in favour of clinging to the lute?”

“Jealous?”

“Of a fucking instrument?” Coën snorted. “Only a little bit.”

“Aww.”

“Don’t you _aww_ me, you little menace. Now put the lute away and go to sleep, or even Melitele herself will be unable to save you from Keldar’s wrath when you’re late to his lesson tomorrow, and I will not be dragging your half-asleep deadweight of a self to the library again.”

Julian grinned wickedly. “It’s okay, you can admit you were just embarrassed when you dropped me.”

“I dropped you on _purpose_ so you’d wake the fuck up!”

“And I, too, always yell _oh fuck, I’m so sorry, are you okay_ when I do something on purpose.”

“I was diverting suspicion.”

“You dropped me by accident and you felt bad about it.”

“Slander.” Coën crossed his arms. “That’s complete and utter slander and you should be ashamed of yourself.”

Smirking at his friend, Julian got up and gently placed Rook’s lute on the floor. It was by no means a quality instrument, scratched and banged-up as it was, with no decorative additions save for some faded, peeling red paint that someone had covered it with, but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t going to treat his prized possession with anything but the utmost care.

Even if the utmost care that Julian could provide was not dropping the damn thing. Witcher keeps were generally not the most useful places to try and maintain an instrument, supplies-wise.

“Although,” he mused, turning back to Coën, “if tomorrow comes and Keldar is still droning on about the theory behind the fucking Signs, I’d rather face his wrath after sleeping in.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“I do,” Julian sighed, falsely morose as he quite deliberately collapsed directly on top of Coën before rolling off of him, to his own patch of blanket. To his credit, Coën didn’t even squeak, though if that was thanks to his witcher training or the fact that Julian had pulled this stunt more times than he could count remained unknown.

“Goodnight, Julek, and I warn you - if I wake up to your foot in my face again, I will abandon all my morals and punch you in your small child face.”

“You wouldn’t,” Julian smirked. “You’re still haunted by the guilt of dropping me.”

He got Coën’s elbow in his face for that one.

The keep was quiet; even though the silence that bore through the halls was familiar, even though neither boy had known the keep to be full - even with raucous wintering witchers or a full cohort of boys before the trials, it had been so, so _empty_ \- it still felt odd, wrong-footed somehow, for it to be so hollow. Perhaps it was the ample evidence that it _had_ been full, once, all the unoccupied lodgings and classrooms gathering dust, or simply the unnerving absence of stimuli, but the eerie quiet never quite became something that anyone was accustomed to.

The silence spoke volumes, whispering a story that something, something terrible had happened there, in the now-cold halls of the Griffin keep.

But whatever it had been, it clearly hadn’t been deemed relevant to any of the trainees’ knowledge.

The sun was known to rise early above Kaer Seren, though if it was the normal kind of early or a special, even earlier variety of earliness specifically designed to torment trainee witchers, no one knew - and so dawn came far sooner than anyone was comfortable with. The silvery moon dipped below the mountain peak, the distant slivers of the ocean not visible beneath the morning dew, as the sun peeked over the horizon and bathed the world in a rosy glow.

Julian, as was his habit, did not rise early.

“Julek.”

“Mmf.”

“ _Julek_.”

“Shut up.”

“Do you want me to end up carrying you again?”

“And get dropped first thing in the morning?” Julian slurred. “No thanks.”

“You’re insufferable.”

“Thank you.”

Grumbling, Coën hoisted Julian out from under the blankets, unceremoniously depositing the boy on the cold, stone floor.

“There we go, I didn’t drop you. Now, get up.”

“Mmf. Tell Keldar I died.”

“ _Julek_.”

“Coën.”

“I’m going to kick you unless you get up.”

At this declaration - on the off-chance that the threat was not, in fact, a bluff, and it was always fifty-fifty with Coën - Julian sprang up off the floor in a hasty movement, eyes wide and alert.

“There we go.”

Julian wished dearly that Coën would cease his self-satisfied smirking, if only so that he could wallow in his laments for his lie-in uninterrupted, but he was up now, and so his morning had already been irreparably ruined - a side effect, really, of his being up before midday in the first place.

Let it never be said that Julian formerly Alfred Pankratz was a morning person.

Keeping up a steady stream of grumbling and banter, the two trainee witchers made their way through the keep, one neat and tidy, the other with sleep-mussed hair and rumpled clothes that he’d oh-so-clearly slept in.

Their echoing footfalls through the castle weren’t quite loud enough to be significant by normal standards, but no doubt a witcher’s hearing could pick them up easily, given the circumstances - there was no way Julian could know for sure, yet, but looking at how their teachers could always tell when they’d been dawdling, or taken a detour, it seemed like a foregone conclusion. How far did the echoes ring to the more sensitive ears? Julian was curious.

Too, it was far more interesting a topic to ponder than the theory behind the fucking Signs.

Much to Julian’s chagrin, old Keldar had, over the not insignificant time he’d spent inhabiting the keep, managed to learn to read Julian quite adeptly, and Julian had, in turn, realised that his _feigning-disinterest-but-actually-listening_ face and his _genuinely-not-paying-attention_ face had some kind of discrepancy between them that could easily be picked up on, if one knew where to look, and he had thus far failed to find it and correct it.

Julian had been incredibly disappointed to find out that the _emphasis on magic_ that the School of the Griffin was rumoured to have manifested itself in the form of hours and hours poring over the various constructions and deconstructions of all the witcher Signs that Julian had heard of and a hundred more that he hadn’t - signs that even Erland said weren’t in use anymore, mainly for reasons involving them being inconvenient to cast - instead of anything actually remotely engaging, under the watchful gaze of at first only Keldar, but later also Erland, who was keen to aid in this specific part of the theory.

And Julian - well, he was all but falling asleep over his books. The exact mechanisms of Heliotrope were not quite enough to keep him awake at fuck o’clock in the morning.

“Julian!”

The voice that jolted him out of his inattention was usually Keldar’s, but this time, it was Erland’s frustrated tone that cut through his daydreaming. Julian jumped, caught in his disregard, and looked at the keep-master with innocent eyes.

“I understand that you like to play the fool,” Erland said, evenly. “And I won’t begrudge a child their fun, especially not a witcher. There is, however, the unspoken expectation that it does not come at the cost of your training. See to it that you do not fall into such a trap again.”

Julian swallowed. The man’s tone was deceptively calm, his words even more so, but there was a message hidden in his declaration - the implication that if Julian couldn’t get his act together, Erland would force it. The man was not in the habit of making threats, but his meaning was clear. He was being warned, now - his next announcement would be that of action.

No Griffin would ever be so crass as to talk back to the Grandmaster of the school, that was certain - it simply wasn’t _done_ , to question the man - but Julian’s frustration must have shown in his eyes, or his face... most likely his eyes, though, as he’d learnt the hard way that the slit-pupilled eyes of a witcher were remarkably easy to read. Either way, Erland took pity on him, and Julian was a tad more glad than indignant at that.

“I’ll tell you why I insist on such a thorough knowledge of the signs, Julian,” he said. “My reasoning is based in sound logic. Tell me, have you ever fired a crossbow?”

Julian nodded - he had, and Erland knew it, but he recognised a segue when he saw one.

“When the bolt is fired, you feel a recoil, as the force applied to the bolt to propel it forward pushes the crossbow itself back, in simple terms. But a crossbow is built and handled in a way to minimise this recoil, and make it safe to shoot, so that when you loose a bolt, the back end of the weapon doesn’t end up stuck through your shoulder.

“It’s much the same with witchers, though the difference is that you never know whether those... mitigation mechanisms, though for the Signs rather than recoil, are strong enough until after the Trial of the Dreams. The Grasses focus mainly on the physiological, after all. It is, to put it mildly, a tad hit-or-miss. I was one of the first witchers, and back then, this wasn’t known information. I remember when I was asked to cast Aard for the first time, I had no issue, but a friend of mine was not so lucky - the force of the sign blew his arm clean off.

“You can understand, I hope, why I’d rather you have a knowledge of each sign you might ever need to cast, rather than letting you at it and dragging you to the infirmary missing chunks of your body - or your mind, even.”

Erland’s gaze was piercing, and Julian felt... not exactly humbled, but certainly put in his place a little, beneath it. He pushed down the urge to squirm, before replying in a calm, clear tone.

“Understood, sir.”

“Good. You will come with me after this lesson to ensure that there are no gaps in your knowledge. The Trial of the Dreams is fast approaching, and I will not have you limping back in having damaged your mind with a mis-cast Axii.”

Julian wanted to protest the loss of his breakfast break, but couldn’t find it within himself to actually do so, as he turned to his book to study the workings of a sign - a name, given in the fancifully crafted title script, too obscured in a font that was at least two centuries old, and harder to read than his own hand - that would cause temporary blindness in the target and apparently needed the world’s most uncomfortable hand position to cast.

He could see why it fell out of favour. Axii was just so much more versatile and convenient.

Perhaps the cautionary tale of a boy blowing his arm off with a simple Aard had spurred him on, perhaps it was the reminder that the Trial of the Dreams was beginning to loom over him, but Julian managed to spur himself on and wade through the study of the signs, pointlessly in-depth as it was. He was fairly certain he’d never find himself wanting to cast the blindness sign - he’d deigned to name it the Sign of George, just to have something to call it by as the author had never reiterated its name, but regardless, he studied most dutifully.

He doubted that all this intricate study was necessary - doubted that any of the other schools even considered all this cramming to be at all useful, even, not when they could just circumvent the problem of backfiring signs by simply waiting till after the Trial of the Dreams without all of the bells and whistles. Still, he considered, perhaps he could utilise some horrendously impractical signs - such as the newly renamed Sign of George - someday to make his life easier.

It was something he’d heard Erland say. _“Every skill learnt, no matter how seemingly useless, is an advantage gained.”_

Julian would know - he parroted it back at him every time he brought the lute down, and Erland would roll his eyes almost imperceptibly, his stoic façade slipping ever so slightly.

Perhaps when the man wasn’t working them to the bone, training him and Coën in swordplay, physical endurance, agility, the most ridiculously impressive array of assorted weaponry, every language the man had picked up in his centuries of life, from Hen Linge to various Koviri dialects scarcely spoken ever since Common was made the kingdom’s official language, the detailed mechanisms behind the Signs, alchemy that was far beyond the required knowledge to brew witcher potions...

The point was, if the man ever stopped commandeering almost all the time between dawn to dusk and past it to run them ragged, Julian would most definitely have made it a personal challenge to get that façade to slip as often as he could, if only he had the time and opportunity to try.

Every skill learnt was an advantage gained, indeed. If Erland was going to use that to explain away his gruelling schedule - and really, given that he, too, was getting up at sunrise to train two boys, he’d pulled the exact same short straw in life that the trainees had... Well, then, Julian could damn well use it to excuse his hobbies.

Not that anyone had ever said anything outright about his lute-playing being a pointless pursuit, surprisingly enough - the most he’d gotten were reminders that it was his own time he was eating into, so he better not use that as an excuse to sleep in, and _gods, Julian, if you want to play that thing can you please fucking tune it_ , the latter mainly from Rook - but still. He enjoyed flipping Erland’s rhetoric on him.

Either way, as the days blurred into a dull monotony that was still simultaneously a whirlwind of activity, time began to slip through Julian’s fingers. The weeks of training bled together in the way that they had done every year, after the reprieve of winter, the break in the routine that a gaggle of returning witchers brought, each day a disarrangement of training exercises and lessons focused on honing various skills committed to memory.

The one momentous occasion that really stuck out in the nowhere-time between the winter and the ever-looming deadline of the Trials - the only significant event in that time, really - was the day that Erland deemed a Swallow potion that Julian had brewed high enough quality to actually deign to drink it rather than immediately disposing of it, before declaring it to be woefully subpar.

That had been rather amusing.

Still, the routine remained dull, if intense, and fleeting.

Oh, it was so, so fleeting.

It was as if the barest amount of time had passed before the day of the Trials came, and yet, simultaneously, an eternity seemed to have managed to manifest itself in the first few months of spring. Either way, the routine of the keep was broken eventually, when it was declared to a largely empty hall that the Trial of the Dreams would commence in the morrow - Julian first, because of _course_ it was Julian first. Some days it felt like he was naught but the sacrificial lamb of the Griffin school.

Alright, perhaps that was a tad bit overkill, but a little embellishment of the details was warranted here and there. Being a sacrificial lamb was so much more poetic than being dissatisfied with a lot he’d metaphorically drawn.

Although, all things considered, the second Trial was so much less risky than the first. His survival, this time, was the likely outcome, for one - it was hard to see the Trial of the Dreams as the same kind of insurmountable obstacle that the Trial of the Grasses had been. It was merely an event, to Julian’s mind - he supposed that was hubris, but hubris was so much more comfortable than terror over whether or not you’d even see the summer.

There was no heart-to-heart in the dark of their room before the Trial of the Dreams, which Julian honestly was rather glad for. There were so many more pleasant things one could do in their free time than contemplating mortality or bemoaning their lot in life, after all, like badly playing the lute.

So that was exactly what he did.

“Possibly your last night in this mortal realm and you’re singing about Keldar being a douchebag of proportions you just made up.”

“Every night is possibly everyone’s last night in this mortal realm if you’re contemplative and boring enough.”

Coën snorted. “Are you implying that death comes only to the uninteresting?”

“Au contraire, as they probably say in Toussaint - or they did, a hundred years ago, probably, given Erland’s age - I’m saying that the more exciting you are, the less you contemplate death. There are so many more interesting things to contemplate.”

“What, like your imaginary feud with your instructor?”

“I resent the use of the word _imaginary_ as a descriptor of our legendary battle of wits, but essentially, yes.”

Julian leant against the wall, idly strumming broken chords, and Coën raised an eyebrow at him.

“You snark at him and he humours you.”

“He gets far more pissed at me than I ever do at him. He hardly _humours_ me, he damn near pops a blood vessel most days.”

Julian played a little flourish on the lute at that, and smirked at his friend.

“Julek.”

“What? Admit it, our feud is legendary and the stuff of ballads. In fact, I’ve started writing one, would you like to hear it?”

Not waiting for an answer, he began strumming his lute, playing the opening bars of the song.

_Once before the days were bleak_

_And when the sun was bright_

_There stood a grand Witcher School_

_So proud and free of blight_

_Then, one day, a young man came_

_Was Trialled, and survived_

_Thus ended Kaer Seren’s peace_

_The day Keldar arrived!_

_Here he came, and here he stayed,_

_And here he grew quite old_

_Was there any Griffin boy_

_That Keldar did not scold?_

_Facts he knows, and facts he bleats,_

_Reciting from old books_

_A shame that’s all there is to him-_

_Mind and face like a crook’s!_

Julian bowed mockingly after performing his little ditty - not quite a ballad, as he’d claimed, but undoubtedly a song about Keldar. Coën hummed appreciatively.

“The rhyme scheme’s good, but I feel like you lost the ball on the last line a little bit.”

“Did I ask for your criticism, Coën?” Julian sulked, turning his nose up in a theatrical fashion. “I’ll have you know, I spent hours trying to find a rhyme for tomes, but the best I could come up with was _gnomes_ , so you see, it could have been a lot worse.”

“I’m sure,” Coën snorted. “You’ve changed so much, Julek. This time last Trial, you were convinced that you’d die and we complained about Andras.”

“You’ll forgive me if I don’t repeat such a thing. I swore to He Who I Shall Not Mention that nobody would ever think about him after he died, and I do try to keep my promises.”

Coën gaped. “You said that to him?”

Julian hummed.

“Julek!”

“What? He was a dick! And then he died, you know, so he didn’t really have a lot of time to get his feelings hurt.”

Pressing his lips together in a thin line, Coën shook his head disbelievingly, though there was mirth in his eyes. “What am I going to do with you?”

“Appreciate my rapier wit?”

Coën snorted. “Just try not to whisper horrible things to any more children on their deathbeds, alright?”

“No promises.”

“I don’t know what I expected there, but I have to say that I am both unsurprised and disappointed.”

Julian crossed his arms. “I’m younger than him. Or, I was.”

“Entirely not the fucking point, thank you,” Coën retorted, his fond grin betraying his amusement.

“But of course, mother.”

“Do you think you’ll be playing the lute with enhanced witcher hearing next week, or is that too much?”

The change of subject was a bit awkward, but what was a bit of clunky conversation between friends? There was hardly any need to dance around topics with careful wording when one was with one’s closest confidantes, after all.

Julian considered Coën’s question with an almost theatrical expression of ponderment. “I suppose I’ll have to wait and see. But one remark about finally having some peace and quiet will cement my choice.”

Coën grinned. “You’d bleed at the ears for the sake of pettiness, Julek?”

“But of course, Coën, my good friend. I would dare not let such a petty thing besmirch my good, hard-earned reputation.”

“Would that be your reputation as the menace of the School of the Griffin, then, that you seek to protect?”

“Precisely.”

For all he could give the excuse of a bit of noble education and the flowery language of the books of Kaer Seren’s magnificent library to explain his verbosity, Julian knew that it still amused Coën to no end to hear an eleven-year-old speak like he was giving speeches to higher nobility. He would have been offended, had he had a slightly higher opinion of himself - and by no measure could he be known as _humble_ , that was a ridiculous idea, but still - but as it was, Julian simply grinned and used that little fact to polish his little monologues and dialogues a bit more, tailor them to his audience of one.

He did so enjoy putting on a performance.

Coën continued, a small smirk playing on his lips. “But have you truly earned such a reputation? Reducing Keldar to ranting rages - which, yes, I will concede does happen - is something most anyone can do, and having a hobby hardly qualified as being _menacing_. Bruno likes to cheat at Gwent, you know, he’s invented some truly awe-inspiring bluffs - and that is far more frustrating than the twanging of strings in the night.”

“Coën! Is that a slight? Are you challenging me to defend my honour?”

A snort. “As if you ever had any honour.”

“You wound me!” Julian gasped, advancing on Coën. “Your sly tongue rends my very being with this _slander!_ ”

He pressed an accusatory index finger to Coën’s chest, and immediately realised his mistake - realised exactly what it was that he’d just betrayed to his friend.

“You’re shaking.”

Coën’s previously mirthful eyes were flooded with warm concern, as he gently placed a hand on Julian’s shoulder.

He tried very hard not to squirm under the comforting pressure.

“Yeah,” Julian said, staring intently at the floor. “Looks like it.”

“Julek. Talk to me.”

“What do you want me to say?”

Coën rolled his eyes. “Hiding shit’s not going to help anyone, you fucking martyr. You’ll only make yourself miserable.”

“I’m not miserable!”

“Maybe not,” the older boy hummed. “But you’re definitely sitting on _something_ , and it’s clearly not doing you any good, so you might as well spit it out.”

Julian glared at him.

Evenly, Coën stared back, entirely unperturbed and unwavering, and spoke again, in a light tone. It was probably to make Julian feel at ease, and most annoyingly, it did exactly that. “Come on, Julek. I’m older than you, wise, and full of good advice.”

“You’re an idiot,” Julian said, trying to keep his voice flat and only mostly succeeding.

“Are you scared?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I’m not going to die. I’m not scared of the Trials.”

Coën raised an eyebrow. “Are you trying to devalue your own emotions for yourself or for others, shit-for-brains? Because it’s not as impressive as you think it is. You can be scared of things that won’t fucking kill you.”

His voice was soft, so soft and warm despite the insults he delivered - the insults that let Julian keep just a bit of dignity as Coën broke through his façade of nonchalance so easily. Julian was glad for that.

He was glad for Coën. He always seemed to know what to do, which was equal parts annoying and fucking relieving.

“Fine. I’m scared.”

Coën said nothing, he didn’t need to - he just pulled Julian into a warm hug.

“I’m scared because it’s going to fucking _hurt_. And I’m- I’m a _witcher_ , I’m not _supposed_ to be afraid of pain-”

“Bullshit.”

Julian laughed, a sad, hiccuping noise laden in shame. “Right, right, I’m a kid, so that makes it fine-”

“Please stop saying stupid things, now, Julek. It’s pretty fucking normal to be afraid of pain, it’s not a good fucking thing and there’s some pretty solid reasoning as to why you’d want to avoid it, be scared of it. Sure, being used to getting bashed up when you’re as dumb and reckless as you are is one thing - and you’ve got so many scars already I’d swear you’ve already been out on the Path already if you weren’t such a midget... Not a compliment, by the way - but Julek. Come on.”

Coën flicked the scar that crossed Julian’s lips - it had been a deep wound, had cut all the way through the skin, parted it completely before Coën had taken it upon himself to stitch the skin back together again - deep enough that it would most likely never fade.

He’d cried a bit when he got it.

Julian squirmed in Coën’s arms. “Stop being all mentor-y, it’s weird.”

“Do you want me to get Erland to lecture you, then? Because I can absolutely do that. I can tell him what an utter unhealthy idiot of a child you’re being, and then you’ll get a lecture on emotional repression from a man who’s centuries old and pretty fucking done with all of this bullshit.”

Despite himself, Julian laughed.

“Honestly, though, Julek, who do you think _wouldn’t_ be scared of the Trials? Especially after they know exactly what the fuck they are? I’m scared too, you know. You fucking idiot.”

“You’re an idiot,” Julian mumbled.

“As the owl says to the robin, or whatever the fuck,” Coën intoned, reciting an old Koviri saying - a saying that made absolutely no fucking sense whatsoever without the second part, a part that most people left out for no discernible reason other than possibly to irritate Julian specifically.

“It’s _the owl says to the robin that it has a big head_.”

“Hm... I think something got lost in translation there, a little bit, it sounds so much better in Koviri.”

“It still doesn’t make any fucking sense when you only say half of it, and besides, nobody speaks Koviri anymore, the official language of Kovir has been the Common Tongue for ages. Just pick a normal saying like everyone else.”

“Glad to see you’ve got your priorities in order, Julek. Won’t admit to being scared of possibly the most terrifying thing in the world, and yet you get up in arms about a _saying_.”

Julian smirked. “You can let go of me now, by the way.”

“I can.”

Coën didn’t move.

“Please let go of me? I want to play the lute.”

At this, Coën relented immediately, and retreated to the blanket bundle, affecting the posture of a rapt audience-member.

The effect of the extremely interested air he projected was somewhat mitigated by the fact that Julian had not yet started playing yet, but he couldn’t bring himself to mind. Perhaps Coën was humouring him a little bit, but he wasn’t trying to _hide_ that he was humouring him, which made it oddly... Well, _endearing_ , Julian supposed, rather than condescending or patronising like he would have expected.

Too, Julian liked that Coën wouldn’t give false compliments. He’d been hesitant with criticism at first, preferring to stay silent rather than give an honest opinion, but Julian had made it very clear that he appreciated bluntness and honesty from his friend, over any paltry attempt to spare his feelings, and Coën had gotten the message.

It was odd, really. For someone with such a propensity with words and a penchant for obfuscation, Julian would have expected himself to shy away from Coën’s straightforward bluntness. The gods only knew he wasn’t capable of it himself.

Still, things worked, the way they were, no matter how seemingly odd, and Julian simply began to sing.

He sang bits and pieces of his own compositions, Redanian folk songs he’d been taught before his tutor at Lettenhove stopped showing up, bawdy drinking songs the returning witchers had taken to chanting some nights, a Skelligan ballad Henrik had half-arsed the recital of a dozen times after staggering into Rook’s room, absolutely pissed out of his mind, whilst Julian and company were poring over the lute...

There was a lullaby Rook remembered his sister had sung to him before he’d been claimed as a witcher, an ear-worm of a song that had become popular in Poviss a few years ago that Julian had reconstructed - poorly - from lines muttered by several witchers, under their breath as they worked... Julian performed his surprisingly extensive repertoire with all the grace and skill of a self-taught child, a beginner at his craft. It helped his performances that he had an ear for music, but in the absence of practice and skill, he couldn’t quite manage the distinct clarity, smoothness and depth to the music that he was aiming for.

Eventually, he began to tire, singing simpler melodies, simpler tunes, and Julian knew that he should rest soon - showing up exhausted to the _Trials_ was sure to be a mistake.

Still, he knew what a fucking nightmare it was to adjust to heightened senses - it had been bad enough when it had just been his eyes, and Julian was acutely aware that despite his earlier bravado, there was no way that he would even be able to strum one of the strings of the lute without being immediately struck by the overwhelming desire to be struck death.

The last song, he decided, would be something soft and quiet and pleasant - a lullaby from Lettenhove, one that his mother used to sing to him. It wasn’t terribly creative a tune, crooning and simple, so it was easy enough even for Julian to improvise an accompaniment.

_When all the stars above us_

_Burn brightly in the night_

_We’ll sit under them in silence_

_And marvel at the sight_

_Of light and dark and quietness_

_Upon us like a shroud_

_And all the stars above us,_

_They shine onwards, never cowed._

It was a sweet song, slow, comforting in a way few things from Lettenhove could possibly be. The song had remained buried in Julian’s memory, half-forgotten and irrelevant, for years - perhaps that was why he could still find comfort in it. Either way, its soft simplicity stayed ringing in Julian’s ears for a long time after the final note ceased its echoing.

Or, perhaps, if the song was still in Julian’s ears despite the silence in the room, it was still echoing, after all.

Pity. He was trying to commit the silence to memory. He’d never much appreciated it, he hated it, but if tonight was the last time he would experience it to such a degree, he still wanted to remember it.

Would the bland gruel Erland called soup be overpowering, after the trials?

Julian wondered how eerie Kaer Seren would be when the awful silence was loud.

His mind was running at a thousand miles an hour, thoughts disjointed and fleeting.

Was he... Was he panicking?

His hand found Coën’s arm in the dark, and grasped it tightly. He wouldn’t panic, he wouldn’t. Being scared was one thing, he could grudgingly concede Coën’s point on that one, but panic-

It was unbecoming. What about his _reputation_ -

What about-

What reputation, anyways? One between four people?

It was only the Trials. He was being a baby, he’d been through them before, couldn’t he fucking _grow up_ already-

But it was the _Trials_ -

Fuck, fuck-

He clutched Coën’s arm tightly, and apparently his grasp was a little too tight, because Coën stirred, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck-

“Julek?”

Julian didn’t whimper. He simply wasn’t the sort.

“Oh,” Coën whispered. “ _Julek_.”

He wasn’t panicking. He was _fine_. He was in his gods-damned room, in a blanket pile, not in the stupid fucking chamber with Erland’s stupid fucking decoctions, so _why_ was he so, so-

 _Why_ was he so fucking _terrified_?

Without saying another word, Coën pulled Julian into a hug. From this close, Julian could smell Coën’s unique scent, of smoke from the fire in the atrium that he liked to tend and underneath that, something soft and warm and familiar that Julian couldn’t put a name to, a scent that was just _Coën_ \- did witchers smell that kind of thing from a distance?

Either way, it was nice.

And waking up still in the bear hug of his best friend - fuck it, his brother, Coën was his gods-damned brother in all but blood, at this point - it was reassuring in a way few other things were.

“Never thought I’d wake up before you, Coën.”

A tired grunt, laced with the vestiges of sleep. “It’s the nerves.”

“I know. It’s still weird.”

“It’s nowhere near sunrise, Julek.”

“The perfect time to get some breakfast, don’t you think?”

Coën groaned as he stretched. “You’ll only throw it up later.”

“It’s the Trials,” Julian snorted. “I’ll throw up regardless.”

“True enough,” Coën shrugged, blinking, yellow eyes still dull and tired. “But I can and will deny all involvement if we’re caught.”

“They’ll probably be able to smell you.”

“I can still deny my involvement. Just to spite you.”

“Come on, then, traitor,” Julian grinned, and wriggled out of Coën’s grip most expertly.

“As you wish, sir.”

They made their way quietly down the corridors, slipping through the shadows with practiced ease. Julian wouldn’t quite say he knew the keep like the back of his hand - the back of his had, after all, was dull and vague and a perfect image of it was hard to call to mind. The layout of Kaer Seren, on the other hand - there was nothing Julian was more familiar with. He knew exactly where to step to minimise the echoing footsteps that would otherwise alert the two older witchers to their presence.

Or, at least, he thought he did. Perhaps he’d been lulled into a false sense of security.

Suspicious.

They arrived at the kitchen without hassle, and set about looting the most luxurious ingredients from the cupboards. Granted, at a witcher keep, that didn’t account to very much - but in the end, it wasn’t exactly about the quality of the food, it was about the thrill of the crime - insofar as some harmless looting from a stock of supplies shared by four people could be termed a crime.

“I found the bread!”

Coën snorted. “It’s fucking bread, Julek. It’s not that exciting.”

“It’s _illegal_ bread.”

“Ah, my mistake, then. Please allow me to partake in a meal of illegal bread, then.”

“But of course,” Julian said solemnly, breaking a chunk of mildly stale bread off of the loaf and handing it to his friend. “It tastes far better than normal bread, thanks to the addition of illegality.”

“It’s stale fucking bread.”

“A feast, fit for kings! If kings were thieves.”

“They are,” Coën nodded, biting into the wholly unremarkable bread. “You think they earned their palaces through hard fucking work?”

“An excellent point, Sir Coën! Thusly,” Julian broke his own chunk off and tore a shred off of it with sharp teeth, enjoying the so-called feast, “it stands that this is indeed a meal fit for kings by virtue of it being stolen from the public.”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full.”

“Yes, mother,” Julian said, chewing the bread. “You know, I think we should add some more flavour. Do we have any jerky?”

“You’ll ruin jerky for the rest of your life if you taste it through the Trials,” Coën warned, but got up to search the cupboards regardless, happening upon the jerky in a matter of seconds. “Want some?”

“I have reconsidered my earlier request and rescinded it.”

“Thought so. More for me, then, my partner in crime.”

“Fuck you.”

Coën shrugged and paired the jerky with the bread, whilst Julian glared at him, jealousy in his eyes.

Generally, witchers were supposed to maintain some degree of control over the shapes of their pupils, but this skill was not one that Julian had mastered as of yet, and he knew it brought Coën no end of amusement to see his feelings betrayed by his fucking eyes time and time again when he was trying to make a statement.

He felt a slight bit betrayed at the hint of a smirk that Coën was sporting, possibly at the fact that he had jerky and Julian didn’t, but he wasn’t about to risk ruining one of the world’s most convenient foods for himself for the sake of one illegal breakfast.

It was still a wonderful breakfast - possibly one of the best that Julian had ever had, complaining about various things, from monarchies to to the weather, which, in the Koviri mountains, ranged from ‘cold’ to ‘excruciatingly cold’ - and it was entirely too soon when Erland of Larvik walked into the kitchen with a surety to his movements that befitted a man of his experience and mirth in his eyes that directly contrasted it.

“I regret to have to interrupt this cheerful meal, but I would like to start the Trials before the rest of the Griffins return for winter,” he said, the joke most likely only there to soften the blow of his instruction.

Had it been anyone else standing there, Julian would have sniped back, said something along the lines of _I don’t know, I’d quite like Rook to be there to hold my hand_ , but one simply didn’t talk to Erland of Larvik like that, and Julian did not cross every line he was presented with - just most of them.

Julian just got up and followed the Griffin grandmaster wordlessly.

Way to ruin a morning.

They made their way swiftly to the chamber that the Trial of the Grasses had been held in so long ago. Apprehension pooled in Julian’s stomach - fuck, the last time he’d been here, he’d simply been resigned to his inevitable fate, and now...

He’d never have expected that the steadfast surety of knowing that he was going to die would be _preferable_ to the knowledge that he’d come out of the Trials feeling uncomfortable in his own skin, drowning in overwhelming input from the world around him.

It had taken him weeks to shake the migraines that followed him whenever he opened his eyes after the Grasses, and dealing with the same thing for touch, taste, hearing, and smell all at the _same time_ was, quite frankly, a terrifying prospect.

“Can’t we...” Julian’s mouth was dry, as his sentence was cut off by his traitorous throat. _Can’t we do this later? Can’t we do them one at a time? Can’t we not do this at all?_

He swore he’d end up giving himself whiplash, shifting between cheerfully apathetic and fucking terrified like this.

Erland, for his part, afforded him the dignity of his silence - no chastisement, no reminders.

Julian was glad for it.

His emotions were always bound to catch up with him - he knew that the lingering fear at the back of his mind, the imprints of the Grasses, would come to the forefront _eventually_ \- but he couldn’t help but feel slighted, betrayed by his own mind. Life was so much more enjoyable when one was a little too blasé for their own good... But the Trials would never be something to be taken fucking _lightly_.

Julian wouldn’t go so far as to say that his life philosophy was stupid, but he’d admit that it didn’t apply in this particular situation. Some things were just meant to be miserable.

Erland didn’t speak - he didn’t have to, Julian needed no instruction. He sat down on the pallet wordlessly, and Erland held out a decoction.

He’d told them, one lesson, that this used to be done intravenously, but the equipment required for such a procedure had been destroyed long ago, and required rigorous maintenance to remain functional, as well as thorough sterilisation before use. Consuming the required potions and poisons the traditional way was, however, no less effective than the intravenous administration of the Trials, even if it was a tad more difficult to administer - in the end, however, the decision had been made, and so that was what would happen.

There was no hesitation this time, no idle thoughts of resignation and regret, before Julian’s senses were once more consumed with the searing, frosty tendrils of pain that he seemed to be submerged in, the sour taste of bile rising in his throat.

There was no hesitation, not on the part of Julian and certainly not on the part of.

Not on the part of-

Fuck, fuck, no hesitation... On the part of _what_?

On the part of the _fucking decoctions_ -

His thoughts slipped from his grasp, slipped from his mind as they were replaced by a swelling pressure in his skull that stole his senses and threatened to overwhelm him, to burst him, overwhelming him like the embrace of some kind of malevolent fucking _god_ -

He shuddered, and the movement served only to intensify the agony, the clammy, piercing tendrils that gripped him becoming poison in his veins, stinging and burning and _tearing_ , and it was _agony_ \- untempered by anything that he’d felt before, not numbed at all by his first Trial, clawing and wrenching its way through him, and then,

Everything exploded in a cacophony of torment.

And then,

Nothing.

Julian blinked.

Were the trials over? So soon?

He tried to stand, but couldn’t, eyes adjusting to the gloom-

The gloom. Darkness, the likes of which he hadn’t seen before the Grasses, consumed all he could see, the faintest glow of light prickling at his peripheral vision.

So - this wasn’t real. It couldn’t be.

A dream? A nightmare? An unconscious delusion, his mind trying to fill in the gaps, the gaping holes in his knowledge where the agony had settled?

Whatever it was, it was a reprieve, at least.

The pounding in the back of Julian’s head began to register, the burning strain in his muscles - the Trials, bleeding into the illusion his mind had supplied him with.

He couldn’t move. Why couldn’t he move? This wasn’t- this wasn’t real. It was a dream, a nightmare, but he should be able to _move_.

Peering into the gloom, Julian could make out darker areas of shadows, quasi-familiar shapes that faded whenever his dull eyes tried to focus on them, the source of the warm sunlight never visible, so omnipresent and yet just out of view.

Why couldn’t he move?

He was trapped, and panic was steadily rising in his stomach. This wasn’t even _real_.

The bleed-through of pain from the trials flared up, catching his attention, and Julian couldn’t help but wish he was back in the throes of his own agony, because at least there he knew what was going on, knew that it was the Trials, it was only the Trials, but this-

Was it supposed to be like this? He doubted it, sincerely doubted it. The Trial of the Dreams wasn’t a _literal_ Trial in his fucking dreams.

And yet, here he was.

Trapped.

He was all but a hostage, confined in a way he though he never would be again - why couldn’t he move?

Dust particles caught the light, the warm light that lurked in the corner of his eyes, just out of reach, and Julian couldn’t _breathe_. It was too dark, too awfully empty, he was being held captive in his own fucking mind, and then the whispers started.

Hint of voices, echoes of things he may have heard years ago, or just empty words that his mind supplied, barely there at first, mocking him, taunting him, _lying_ to him, the murmurs crescendoing and thundering around him, engulfing him, tearing at his ears and suffocating him, like a raging storm of sound, and Julian couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything but lie there, helpless, and drown.

This was... It was cruel.

It was so needlessly cruel.

The white-hot agony Julian knew he was feeling began to register, intensifying and gripping him, bleeding into the dream, clawing its way through every fibre of his being, inundating his senses, and it was such a particularly delicate flavour of excruciating that he couldn’t help but strain against his unresponsive, leaden limbs, his entire body screaming at him, telling him that he should be writhing in pain.

A scream tore itself from his throat, and finally, _finally_ , the illusion shattered.

The illusion shattered, and Julian felt his burning, freezing body convulse, so limp and boneless yet so brittle and ready to shatter, the familiar tang of blood and bile amplified a thousandfold on his tongue, screams tearing themselves from a throat that was so hoarse and dry that the very air he breathed grated against him, pained him, and all the while, the thunderous sense of overwhelming _noise_ never left him.

This was no whisper from his past, no mocking echo, no - just an unwavering torrent of sound, sound and so much more, stifling him and consuming him, his own screams an assault on his senses.

He was drowning, he was drowning, every movement agony, every single sound, movement, everything an assault.

Julian was simply.

He was damn near dying.

He barely registered when it was over, the pain receding far too slowly and leaving a lingering ache, but the sound and the smell and the taste of his own insides on his tongue and the unfathomable pressure gripping every single part of his skin, crawling and scratching at him... They all remained far, far too vividly.

Distinctly, he could feel the tight tracks of dried tears on his cheeks, hear the haggard gasps of breath escaping his chest.

He was lying on something soft, something fabric, a far cry from the wood of the pallet he’d passed out on, the familiar outlines of stone cobbles under the warm textile layer - he was in his and Coën’s room.

How he’d gotten there was little mystery - and, had the circumstances been any different, he’d have smirked to himself as he wondered if it was Keldar, Coën, or the Grandmaster of the Griffin School himself that had carried him across the keep. As it was, he could barely focus on anything at all that wasn’t the maelstrom of sound and scent and _everything_ that surrounded him.

If he concentrated - and it was so, so, hard to concentrate, when his skin was crawling and his head was about to burst - but if he concentrated, he could hear so _much_. The whistling of the tiniest breezes and through-droughts that cut through the keep, the echoes of footsteps through the empty keep, so far away and yet so loud, and, ever so faint yet right in his ear - screaming.

A familiar voice, howling in agony - no doubt, Coën was going through the Trial of the Dreams now that Julian was done with it. He shuddered, the movement involuntary and painful, and tried his best to get lost in the maelstrom again.

His own heartbeat, his breathing, thundered loudly in his ears, a constant sound against the cacophony he’d found himself plunged into, and yet it wasn’t enough to completely ensnare his concentration.

He could hear shouts, hurried footsteps, Erland and Keldar’s worried communication, and all of a sudden, his tired, aching body was alert once more.

Julian found himself unable to track to conversation, hearing only snatches, odd words amidst the cacophony, _Coën_ and _Trial_ and _reacting_ and _mitigate_ , hardly giving any kind of context for the discussion, but the tone, he could hear perfectly.

And there was really only one thing all this could mean, Julian thought, the cold feeling of dread pooling in his stomach, and it was the simplest, worst outcome - Occam’s razor, the principle was - and with a spasming shudder, the boy steeled himself and dragged his throbbing body to it’s feet.

His legs were weak, trembling under his weight as he staggered forwards, but _fuck_ it, he could do this.

He had to, he couldn’t just lie, unresponsive, on his fucking blankets, when the scenario that the undertone to his mentors’ voices indicated was undoubtedly playing out.

Because what, other than the most terrible of terrible outcomes, could be indicated by that dreadful hint of _panic?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look look look look at this art [conquihare](https://conquihare.tumblr.com/) did [here](https://conquihare.tumblr.com/post/618720888277417984/witcher-jaskier-hells-yeah-my-dude-witcher) hdfgjdhgfjh it’s amazing
> 
> An actual proper chapter coming next update djhfgkhjsgfj I’m so sorry for whatever the fucking fuckity fuck this is
> 
> I had a very bad week and i think it shows in the quality of this chapter, i just completely lost the plot hjdfgjhasgdfjh


	11. The Good, the Bad, and the Comically Terrible

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Old mistakes, Jaskier noticed, have a habit of coming back round for the specific purpose of making things even worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT’S BEEN A HOT FUCKING SECOND SINCE THIS HAS UPDATED, HASN’T IT?
> 
> Welcome back! I’m incredibly sorry for the impromptu hiatus, I was incredibly swamped with Stuff. Anyways, the Plot is Thickening and I am incredibly excited for it. I have the next 16 chapters all planned out, and I _should_ be back to regular updates again after this!! Thank you for bearing with me, and this fuckoff long author’s note.
> 
> That said, a HUGE thank you to [DancerInTheShadows](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DancerInTheShadows/pseuds/DancerInTheShadows) for helping me get this chapter to cooperate, beta-ing parts of this chapter, and generally dragging me and DttD back from the brink of death (also read their fic [Forever Wanting More](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24400183/chapters/58859446) because it’s amazing), and to [TheJaskiestOfThemAll](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheJaskiestOfThemAll/pseuds/TheJaskiestOfThemAll) for beta-ing _other_ parts of the chapter and also _the entire 66k already posted_ for editing purposes, Samdy i fucking love you.
> 
> Also big thank uuuu to [brothebro](https://archiveofourown.org/users/brothebro/pseuds/brothebro) and [andrewminyards](https://archiveofourown.org/users/andrewminyards/pseuds/andrewminyards) for basically CPR-ing DttD (and me) back to life. I love you all so much jhdfgjksdhgk
> 
> Enjoy... this.

“Jaskier.”

Well, fuck. This was hardly an ideal situation. Jaskier was beginning to wonder, in fact, if the whole glamour thing was at all worth it in the first place - the trouble it had brought was far more than it was worth, it seemed to him. But, regardless, this was not the time to let his mind wander.

“Geralt.”

His voice, as light and unworried as he could make it, was schooled into a façade of evenness - he was, first and foremost, a performer, and he’d gotten much better at it since his brief, disastrous stint as a spy - and he followed the witcher’s gaze to his shoulder, where he knew that he’d been betrayed by his glamour once again.

“Jaskier,” Geralt repeated, as it was becoming increasingly clear that the bard was not, in fact, about to start clarifying anything about the whole _missing a rather large burn scar_ situation - least of all how and why he’d come to be missing it. “Explain.”

Now _that_ , Jaskier knew, was an opportunity. He could do precisely what he’d been doing for the past... well, quite a significant number of years, really... and simply lie his arse off. _It’s so much easier to bed a stranger without them asking leading questions about your scars_ \- not that Jaskier bedded quite as many people as he claimed, but a convenient cover story for his more illicit affairs was a convenient cover story for his more illicit affairs - and he could hope to the gods Geralt wasn’t familiar with the average price of a glamour, especially one so permanent and intricate.

Part of him, however, just plain didn’t _want_ to. It was hypocritical beyond all measure to expect Geralt to trust him when he didn’t even feel inclined to share such a basic fact about himself as the fact that they were, in fact, of the same - or at least eerily similar - stock. The fact that the main reason for the glamour in the first place was to conceal this was Jaskier’s main excuse for his silence, but he couldn’t avoid the _implications_ of said silence.

Ah. Fuck. Well, in the words of more than one person, Jaskier (or even Julian, once upon a time) had always been a little bit of a bastard.

Or, revised opinion, a _lot_ a bit of a bastard.

“It’s... It’s just a glamour, you know. For vanity’s sake. The awkward scar questions made things very... well, _awkward_ after the first few times... Though I suppose you’d know, wouldn’t you?” Jaskier chuckled softly, ducking his head.

He should have been an actor, really.

Geralt’s face twisted a little, at that, but he said nothing. Of course he didn’t. It made sense for the vain bard to be... well, _vain_ about the whole thing, and for all Geralt could identify a monster from a few misshapen claw marks, Jaskier doubted the man would ever be able to fully comprehend human intent.

“So-” he began, but Geralt cut him off.

“For fuck’s sake, Jaskier!”

Geralt’s tone was rough, anger evident in his posture - fuck, even his pupils were narrowed into the thinnest of slits, barely visible against the gold of his irises - and all Jaskier could do was blink. “Sorry?”

“Don’t presume to _lie_ to me, bard,” Geralt hissed, through gritted teeth, and - oh, _hell_.

“ _Lie_ to you? The fuck would I be lying about? The broader perceptions of scarring amongst bedmates picked up in-”

“That’s fucking rich of you, isn’t it?”

“ _What_ is?”

A low, throaty growl made its way from Geralt’s throat, and Jaskier - despite his composure - flinched. “Do you really think me so _stupid_ , bard, that you assumed I wouldn’t notice?”

“Notice what? I’d genuinely like to know, Geralt, what you possibly could have _noticed_ about me that I haven’t already _told you_ , because apparently, only one of us is capable of normal communication!”

Right. That was a low blow, with Jaskier mentally wincing as soon as the words left his mouth, but fuck, hadn’t Lohere’s impromptu decision to show up been such a perfect demonstration of why he should keep his fucking cover at all costs? As much as Jaskier liked Geralt, he liked not being blackmailed into random killing sprees a lot, too.

If only he could communicate that sentiment.

“You know,” Geralt snarled, “what I fucking noticed, bard. You’re too comfortable with danger, and it’s not recklessness, is it? You’re just that _confident_.”

“Geralt, you can’t possibly-”

“Let me finish, bard. The mortician in Beled - she could kill without raising any suspicion, track us a day without either of us noticing and set up an ambush - and yet you managed to take her down. The assassins in the forest - you’d think it was lucky that they didn’t come after you, wouldn’t you? The bard with an arrow in his shoulder, the weakest target - but they _did_ , didn’t they?”

Jaskier swallowed. “I didn’t kill-”

“You didn’t kill him. You didn’t have to, he stumbled right into me just fine. And come to think of it, what kind of human is so desperate to have an arrow wound cauterised?”

Shit.

Shit, shit, _shit_.

“Well, excuse me for not being an expert in bloody medicine! I went to Oxenfurt for the seven liberal arts and that was _it_ , Geralt, I never took medicine, and I didn’t know if I was going to bleed out where I stood! And don’t even _start_ about you knowing better, because I can tell you, witcher injuries are fuck-all next to human ones!”

“And yet you admitted to being able to suture a stitch not five minutes ago.”

Damn it all to hell. He _had_. Could he not keep his mouth shut for a single bloody moment?

Jaskier faltered. “Fine. Yeah. I know a bit of medicine. But fuck me, Geralt, and arrow had gone through my shoulder, so excuse me if I wasn’t thinking entirely straight!”

“It’s always what’s convenient, isn’t it? You don’t know medicine, but you do, you’re weak and hapless, but you’re not, you talk about yourself and yet when I ask, you wave your hand and say it’s irrelevant, it’s unimportant-”

“At least I bother to fucking talk! I swear by Melitele’s fine bosom that _this_ is the longest conversation you’ve had with me to date, and you’re yelling at me!”

Geralt growled again, a low, throaty sound that made Jaskier bristle, equal parts affronted and on edge. “ _Bard_.”

“ _Witcher_.”

“What are you?”

“What am I?” Jaskier laughed, his voice a tad higher than it should have been. “What do you mean, what am I? What do you _think?_ ”

“I don’t know-” and gods, the forced evenness in Geralt’s tone was so infuriating that Jaskier wanted to scream- “hence, why I’m asking.”

“Ooh, _hence_ , that’s a big-boy word, isn’t it? Where was all of this verbosity in the past fuck-knows-how-many months, then?”

The subject change was extremely unsubtle. His rhetoric professor would be rolling in his grave, had he been listening - not that he was dead, but Jaskier’s ineloquent declaration surely would have killed him if he’d heard it.

“Jaskier, just _tell me_ , damn it. What are you?”

“A bard? A man? A hapless travelling companion to your intimidating, witchery self?”

“You know _exactly_ what I mean, bard,” Geralt snarled, narrowing his eyes. “Don’t play stupid, it’s not a good look on you.”

“Oh, okay, so you’re interrogating me now? Really, Geralt?”

“No.”

Jaskier threw his arms as wide as he dared, not wanting to pull at the stitches in his abdomen with the sudden movement. “What is this, then? A bloody... A friendly chat?”

“An opportunity.”

“A- An _opportunity!_ An opportunity, he says! An opportunity to what, lay bare my entire life story, just because you asked? I’ve given you an explanation!”

“You wanted to travel with me, bard, and I let you. I’d say you owe me a bit of-”

“I don’t owe you _shit_ , Geralt of Rivia. In fact- in fact, I’ll leave, right now, if you want me gone so badly!”

“No.”

“No?”

“No,” Geralt repeated, his voice far too calm and far, far too soft.

“What- the fuck do you mean, no? I’m my own person, I can do whatever I want!”

“Right. You’re the only one allowed to make decisions for other people, I apologise for forgetting.”

“Don’t be ridiculous!”

“Ridiculous, am I? You followed me in Posada, came to Kaer Morhen because you knew I wouldn’t seek your company out.”

That was... a fair point, actually.

Jaskier bit his lip. He didn’t have much of a leg to stand on in this argument, and he knew it - Geralt was _right_ , and Jaskier had, annoyingly, talked himself into multiple contradictions.

And, out of the two of them, only one of them had actually enrolled to study rhetoric at Oxenfurt, and he was certain beyond a shadow of a reasonable doubt that it wasn’t Geralt.

“Right,” he huffed, deflating. “So why am I not allowed to leave, then?”

“Because I don’t trust you.”

Well, that was one hell of a declaration, delivered casually enough that Jaskier had to let it register for a moment - and then, when it did, he did his very best not to visibly react, because _fucking hell_. “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer, then, that kind of thing?”

Geralt snorted - actually _snorted_ \- at that. “If you didn’t have anything to hide, you wouldn’t be so blatantly hiding something.”

Hells, Jaskier’s underestimation of Geralt had apparently been _brutal_. He supposed that this was comeuppance for his hubris, then - he’d gotten so very complacent, letting his assumptions guide him in a way that he thought had been drilled out of him.

The whole bard thing had gotten to him, it seemed. He’d fucked up so confidently, he hadn’t seen it coming.

Or maybe he was just presumptuous. Overconfident. Arrogant.

That was not something he wanted to think about at _all_.

“We should go. Get paid for the griffin,” Geralt said, interrupting Jaskier’s half-hearted contemplations.

Damn it. That had been his opportunity, his chance to rebut the accusation levelled against him, and he’d missed it. That was practically an admission of guilt all on its own - not, it seemed, that Geralt needed one, as seemingly intelligent as the man apparently fucking was, now.

Had _Jaskier_ really been the wilfully oblivious one all this time?

“Sounds like a plan,” he agreed softly, as Geralt went back to retrieve the griffin’s head.

Technically, his cover wasn’t blown properly just yet. It didn’t have to be, either - there were a thousand possible explanations he could give for all the incongruences that Geralt had so neatly picked up on if Jaskier deigned to collect his thoughts properly, even after this whole debacle of a confrontation - but on the other hand, he’s expected Geralt’s trust, trust was most emphatically a two-way street. One-way trust tended to have other names. Like ‘manipulation’. Or ‘betrayal’.

Jaskier let out a quiet hiss of frustration. Was he really considering-? Right after the whole Lohere shit-show, too? Ridiculous. If anything, that should have been the brightest, most glaring example as to why entrusting people with the knowledge of his glamour was a ridiculously stupid thing to do.

He blamed his Griffin upbringing for his internal conflict, really. He’d always thought his rampant assholery to be rather remorseless, right up until he had to confront it.

Geralt removed the griffin’s head with a few precise, heavy strikes, as Jaskier watched, somewhat disoriented. Why was this a conversation he was having with himself? He could easily rationalise his secrecy; he _should_ rationalise it, even, given the years and years he’d devoted to making sure his current lifestyle was viable, that his cover was impeccable, and yet he was seriously considering blurting out his deepest secrets to a man he’d know for a matter of months - but why?

Sure, Geralt had raised a lot of valid points against Jaskier, but that had - for better or for worse - hardly done much to discourage him from doing whatever-the-fuck-he-so-desired for the best part of his life.

Actually. Perhaps that was a problem in itself.

Fuck.

Jaskier groaned and leant back against a tree, his stitches pulling uncomfortably.

This was one hell of a situation.

He lingered there, a tad longer than he’d perhaps intended to, caught up in his own thoughts - until Geralt so unceremoniously interrupted his ponderment.

“Bard. We need to get back to the town.”

Blinking, Jaskier snapped himself out of his thoughts and focused on his... his companion, now, he supposed - he wouldn’t claim friendship after their argument, he wasn’t that presumptuous.

Geralt stood right at the edge of Jaskier’s periphery - griffin head slung over his shoulder, probably halfway back to the horses already what with how dangerously close they’d tethered them.

“Indulge me a moment of rest, witcher,” Jaskier retorted, scowling. “We can’t all run around like idiot chickens, right after getting stitched up. And badly, might I add! Gods, that scar’s going to be horrible.”

“Who knows? Maybe it will make like the other one and disappear.”

“Fuck you.”

He did, however, start making his way towards the horses, pointedly not looking at Geralt whatsoever - the sooner they made it back, after all, the sooner Jaskier could collapse into a real bed and sleep on the whole issue that had suddenly blown up in his face.

The whole argument left a bad taste in his mouth, if he were to be completely and unwarrantedly honest with himself... And he didn’t much want to be, not when the truth was so often such a massive inconvenience. Surely Geralt himself would understand - that the reality of things was so often a muddy quagmire of derision and arbitrary restrictions based on what the world at large deemed acceptable and unacceptable, the fact that sometimes a certain amount of secrecy and deception were necessary when there were so many who would wish you ill on sheer principle...

Bullshit. Jaskier had no reason to keep his secret from Geralt - he considered the man trustworthy, someone he respected, someone who - and he’d tried to judge this as impartially as he could, easy as it was to cultivate bias - was honourable almost to a fault, rough around the edges, but still so dependable and _good_.

And sure, he didn’t _owe_ Geralt any information, but Jaskier still felt wrong-footed. He had, without a doubt, handled the situation poorly.

Ah, fuck. It was ridiculously late in the evening to evaluate the full extent of his and possibly Geralt’s moral failings. The moon was far too near its zenith for it to be a good time for anything even vaguely approaching a session of serious contemplation, besides which, morality was beginning to grate on him. Yes, being a deceptive bastard wasn’t generally a good thing, but what were his other options? Accept that he’d been dealt a shit lot in life as a witcher, and move on?

Hardly.

The point was, to come to some kind of conclusion, that he needed to be a great deal drunker than he currently was to deal with the issue at hand. He’d contemplate the nuanced moral ramifications of his illicitly acquired bardic career when he was seeing bloody triple. Not now.

Bollocks, the unfortunate horse, had been led some way away by Geralt, right alongside Roach, by the time Jaskier shook himself free of his unwelcome ponderment. He resisted the urge to roll his eyes as he took the reins from Geralt as he caught up.

What the hell did the ridiculous man think he was going to? Run away on horseback, whilst the witcher had all the coin? Not bloody likely. He’d slept on the forest floor enough consecutive times in the last few weeks that he’d have tagged along back to the inn with Geralt if he’d put a dagger to his neck.

Geralt stared at him, brow still furrowed, as if he were still trying to piece together whatever it was that Jaskier had so poorly hidden, and the bard’s urge to stick his tongue out in retaliation was not one he fought against, allowing himself to indulge in a small moment of childishness.

In a small movement that Jaskier had at some point gotten almost uncomfortably familiar with, Geralt rolled his eyes, and for a moment it was as if nothing had happened, that Jaskier hadn’t just yelled at him for having the audacity to state the uncomfortable obvious.

He shouldn’t, by all logic, be mourning a friendship he’d never really _had_ \- and come to think of it, he’d spent so much time dismissing the fact that yes, Geralt was a competent man in his own right, and Jaskier was just too caught up in his own problems to acknowledge that, that he doubted that he was in any position to feel slighted - and yet.

Here he was.

Doing exactly that.

“It’s nice to be able to hit the road alongside my favourite travel companion again, at any rate, even despite the circumstances,” Jaskier mused out loud, as much to distract himself from his thoughts as to try and turn the silence between them into something less strained. “Gosh, I’ve missed your stoic and silent company, Roach.”

Geralt pointedly didn’t react - and really, it was just like the first time he’d tried to tag along after the man, except this time they had the allusions to their faint almost-camaraderie that they’d built up looming in the distance behind them, and Geralt’s exponentially more worrying newfound suspicions of Jaskier, too.

Like that would stop him trying to unfuck the mess he’d happily knitted himself into.

“Geralt,” Jaskier said, trying his best to catch the man’s attention. “Geralt, do you think that-”

“Shut up, bard,” Geralt snapped, fixing Jaskier in a glare, Roach’s reins gripped tightly in his hands - tightly enough that it must have been uncomfortable for him, biting into his hand even through the glove he’d put back on after stitching Jaskier up.

Gods, the griffin fight seemed like it had been years ago, instead of a scant half-hour or so.

“That’s rather rude of you, _witcher_. You don’t even know what I was going to ask you if you thought.”

“Something pointless.”

“Pointless- I’ll give you fucking pointless, Geralt! You know, some people do quite enjoy conversing for conversation’s sake, right? It’s generally known as a _social interaction_ , you see, it happens when two people decide to mutually enjoy each other’s company... Do they teach you nothing in witcher school?”

The withering glare he received in response to that deserved to be immortalised on at least three separate canvases by Oxenfurt and Lan Exeter’s best artists. That look... That look could bring down _armies_ through sheer derision.

Jaskier glared right back, knowing damn well that his threatening face was not as threatening as he liked to pretend it was, not under a glamour designed rather specifically to offset the more threatening aspects of his visage, but he supposed he’d made his point well enough - the point being that he was rather displeased with the vaguely defined situation he was currently in.

It didn’t sit right with him, the frustrating amount of things he’d wilfully overlooked, just because they were inconvenient to him. Perhaps his rivals had been onto something, he mused, when they’d called him arrogant. Well, Valdo fucking Marx had called him arrogant. Keldar had been more of a fan of the word _conceited_ , come to think of it.

He snorted at the memory. _“I suppose you’ll be rather less conceited, boy, when you receive your punishment,”_ as if scrubbing a goddamn floor would humble him at all. As if having misbehaving trainees polish the damn halls had been about anything more than Kaer Seren’s tragic inability to employ janitors - which, for the record, it _hadn’t_ , so Keldar could _shove it_ with his ridiculous preaching.

But that was a digression. He’d all but written Geralt off, assumed he wouldn’t notice or wouldn’t care to look based on very little information, and generally taken no care whatsoever to ensure that he could keep his secret long-term. Possibly, he’d also insulted Geralt’s intelligence quite a bit in the process, but that was something to contemplate at a far later date.

Jaskier was, however, not above feeling a little bit stupid. Of course Geralt would have noticed all of Jaskier’s little tells - he was a _witcher_. That was his _job_.

This was all such utter bullshit.

It was chilly, in the woods, but not as cold as they had been a week or two ago, the bitterness of winter receding to make way for the humid warmth of spring and eventually, the unpleasant, sweltering heat of summer. For now, though, it was just slightly to the left of comfortably cool.

In a pleasant turn of events, the thudding of hooves and quiet, barely-there footfalls of two men were the only sounds of any significance within even a witcher’s range of hearing - and thank the gods, because like _hell_ did they need yet another monster to fight - and Jaskier found himself focusing on the bloodstains that Geralt’s person now sported, in the absence of anything better to occupy himself with.

The viscous, almost-ichor that had seeped into his armour was griffin blood, Jaskier knew from experience if not by smell, and it was an utter bitch to scrub out of anything. That was the merit, he supposed, of black armour - griffin blood stains weren’t as vexingly obvious.

The blood that stained his hands, though, was Jaskier’s, and suddenly the bard was incredibly glad for the pungent odour of dead griffin that hung over Geralt like a miasma. As far as he knew, whatever enchantment had been woven into his glamour that masked his scent had its limitations (distance, he was fairly sure, was a factor - the glamour couldn’t exactly stretch) and the last thing he needed was Geralt sniffing out his secrets from his _blood_.

Wait. Damn it. He was contemplating the situation again. Jaskier shook his head. His situation was precarious, yes, but salvageable - he could stop fretting at any moment, he was only winding himself up.

“Geralt?”

No answer.

“We didn’t get rooms at the inn before we left for your contract, did we?” Jaskier asked, knowing full well that they hadn’t. The villagers had been so eager to send Geralt off after their local monster problem that they’d had no time to stop anywhere at all, let alone negotiate a room at the inn.

“Hm.”

“At any rate, they’ll probably let us grab a room still, given that most people were awake enough to send you after the damn griffin.”

The head thumped against Roach’s side, where it was secured beside Geralt’s miscellaneous belongings. Dear gods, it was right on top of his pack. Had the man somehow missed the message that _griffin blood doesn’t wash out_?

“If they don’t give us a room, we can make camp,” Geralt grunted, paying Jaskier’s squawk of protest no heed. “Or, you could charm the innkeep into giving us a room.”

“Charisma doesn’t work on the sleeping.”

“Hm.”

“Really- _hey!_ ” Belatedly, Jaskier realised what Geralt had been alluding to. “Are you accusing me of _charming_ people to like me? The- the _nerve_ , Geralt! I’m not some kind of one-trick peon who uses magic to compensate; people like me because I’m personable!”

Geralt simply raised an eyebrow at him as he continued to splutter indignantly.

“Just because someone has a modicum of social skills... I swear to Melitele’s fine bosom, Geralt, you... you... That’s ridiculous, even given the circumstances!”

Jaskier met his companion’s eyes, and... was that a _smirk_?

Right, he had to amend his opinion of the situation post-haste. Geralt was _joking_. Geralt was joking, and so, consequently, he was clearly, by all measure, completely and utterly, uncontestably in a court of law, entirely and wholly, with the kind of certainty that most academics could only dream of having, most deeply and insurmountably, unavoidably (unlike his taxes), unquestionably _fucked_.

Tugging on Bollocks’ reins, Jaskier stuck his nose in the air and picked up his pace, making it abundantly clear as he overtook the other man that he would not stand for Geralt’s jabs any longer. He had his _pride_ , damn it.

Though he couldn’t deny, his chest did feel a little bit lighter.

* * *

They’d split up when the reached the town again, Geralt going to claim payment from the alderman and Jaskier to book them a room at the inn - and it would, in fact, have to be one room, for reasons that were both a mixture of Jaskier’s coin still being entirely depleted from his bad decisions in Oxenfurt and the fact that Geralt was reluctant to take his eye off of Jaskier long enough for him to leg it - much to Jaskier’s surprise.

He’d been under the impression that the witcher wasn’t about to let him out from under his watchful, scrutinising gaze for the next century or so... But, on the other hand, they _did_ have something of a time constraint to deal with, given that innkeepers were not mysterious beings that didn’t require sleep, and if they failed to book a room in time, they would end up having to camp - and gods, was Jaskier tired of camping.

Then, too, came the caveat that if Geralt didn’t drop the griffin’s head off with the alderman as proof of kill and whatever else it might be used for, they’d have to sleep with a griffin head in the room, or perhaps be denied a room on the grounds that large and bloodied monster heads were banned from most establishments this side of Cintra, where the preferred term for for monster head was “Queen Calanthe”.

And perhaps Geralt had his doubts about how far Jaskier would be willing to run with enough coin to pay for their business at the town’s inn and _only_ their business at the town’s inn, fished out of his coin purse and handed over to the sheepish, still-broke bard with a grumble.

Credit where it was due, Jaskier really wasn’t going anywhere, not when he had the allure of a real bed to look forward to. 

The inn was - as, unfortunately enough, was predicated of these kinds of backwater establishments - rather ramshackle and dirty and generally subpar as far as establishments went, but, by some miracle, still open and accepting guests despite the hour, and Jaskier felt his day - or what was left of it - looking up a little more. It seemed that he was getting that bed after all.

Too, the place had a stable - evidently, they were used to the odd traveller coming through - and thus, Roach and Bollocks were stabled under Jaskier’s watchful eye, and their packs (the griffin blood was still wet and sticky on Geralt’s but Jaskier figured that his doublet was a lost cause anyways) slung over his shoulder.

“Hello,” he called, cheerfully announcing himself to the bored-looking inkeep and three remaining drunkards at their tables as he crossed the threshold.

The innkeeper eyed him. “You come in with that witcher?”

“I did indeed, my good lady. He’s delivering the griffin’s head to the alderman as we speak, and I’m here to book a room for the both of us on his behalf.”

“Don’t think you’ll be getting dinner, at this hour, bard.”

“I’ll be sure to curb my presumptuousness, in that case. We require only a room, oh, and...” Jaskier began, then hesitated, looking down at his own bloodstained midriff - did he really have to tear his stitches so _violently_? He was fairly certain the wound hadn’t bled this much when he’d received it.

Regardless, he supposed this was one occasion on which he needed a wash as well as Geralt.

“A bath?”

“Ah... Yes, my apologies.”

The innkeeper snorted. “I’ll bring one up for you and the witcher, but you’ll be sharing.”

Jaskier winced. He somehow doubted that they were at the point in their relationship where bath-sharing began to occur, especially given the recent step backwards in regards to exactly how much Geralt trusted him.

“That’ll be brilliant, thank you.”

He grinned brightly at the innkeeper as he began to count Geralt’s coin - almost exactly the correct price, a little more, but one did get rather good at estimating prices on the Path, Jaskier supposed - much to the innkeeper’s apathy.

In fact, given the speed, the force with which she shoved the room key towards him, with a handkerchief, no less, not at all willing to take it into her hands, she was all too happy to be rid of him.

To each their own, then.

“Up the stairs, third room down the left. Bath’ll be there in half an hour.”

“Much appreciated.”

The drunkards at their tables paid him little heed as he strolled past them, and up the stairs as indicated, finding the third room on the left quickly and easily, as he was wont to, as a man who was both sober and not so wholly unintelligent. It was, as he’d expected, pretty shitty, the furniture old and cleaned about as thoroughly as a dog’s asshole - the lingering, rancid smell of old vomit still hung about the room. Someone had been sick all over the floorboards, and, judging from the staleness of the scent, it had been a while ago.

Jaskier wrinkled his nose, as he set the packs down in the corner.

Hopefully, the griffin blood was strong enough to overpower the scent completely, as the lesser of two evils, but he doubted it. A Witcher’s sense of smell could pick out even the slightest of odours - they were, frustratingly enough, designed to withstand being overpowered. The mustiness of the sheets, the wood, too, of the furniture, even the almost rust-adjacent tang of the key...

He could pick them all apart, isolate and identify them - that’s what he was supposed to be able to do, it was how he was designed.

All in all, the room was a shitty one, but not so shitty that Jaskier wouldn’t gladly enjoy the reprieve from the forest floor. It was dirty, half-dilapidated, and somewhat cramped, but passable.

The bed, however, was a double one.

That’d be fun, after their whole argument.

Jaskier groaned, collapsing against the wall. No doubt there’d be hell to pay if he got blood on the musty sheets.

He’d fucked up with Geralt, royally, and now he had one of two options. To double down on his cover - competently, this time, because Melitele’s _tits_ , Geralt’s query had caught him completely, embarrassingly off-guard and he was supposed to be _better_ than that - or to tell him the truth.

What would happen, then? They’d probably go their separate ways, and Jaskier would simply have to hope that Geralt didn’t sell him out.

Wasn’t that grand? His plans for companionship thrown out, his very identity as Jaskier thrown into question.

It wasn’t that Jaskier didn’t trust Geralt, but once information was known, it couldn’t be unknown.

And Jaskier had spoken with enough mages, enough unsavoury characters, too, to know that known information didn’t have to be freely given to be spread.

It was a cumulative thing. Exponentials could come into play, too. Like a disease.

And Lohere proved that there were at least _some_ mages who had use for an easy-to-blackmail witcher.

But Geralt was a good man.

Careful, too.

Bollocks.

He didn’t really have much of a leg to stand on, there.

Decisions... Decisions were difficult.

It hadn’t been _that_ long a day, surely, but Jaskier was tired.

So tired.

His eyelids were heavy.

He could barely keep himself awake.

Lethargic. That was what he was.

No energy.

All he could do was fall asleep to the scent of blood, vomit, almost-rust, and... alcohol?

But the footsteps that accompanied the stench - one of the drunkards - were quiet.

Soft.

Precise.

The key... the key wasn’t rusted.

Shit.

 _Shit_.

The key wasn’t rusted.

Jaskier was just _fucking stupid_.

He shook his head.

Whatever this was- whatever this was, it was _strong_. No wonder the innkeep hadn’t wanted to touch the key.

 _This_ was why Geralt had caught onto him. He’d gotten far too fucking lazy, had he forgotten that he wasn’t _actually_ a hapless bard?

Almost-rust. And, underneath, an earthy scent.

A mixture, he was sure, of some kind of liquid that his skin would absorb, and... that was from the bloody poison nut tree. Strychnine.

A muscle twitched in his shoulder. Definitely strychnine.

Gods, if he were human, that much would have killed him.

Convulsions. Lethargy. Possible asphyxiation.

But merely coating a key wouldn’t get him that far.

Just knock him out a little.

No antidote, even Golden Oriole didn’t work against the nasty little bugger (Keldar had given three different speeches about that nice little tidbit) but White Honey... White Honey would combat the effects, somewhat.

The footsteps were getting closer.

Geralt’s pack.

He’d dropped it, he realised, not far from where he’d collapsed. White Honey. White Honey.

Jaskier swallowed, and hoped to all that was good and holy that the Wolves used the same potion-to-bottle system as the Griffins.

Dragging himself over to Geralt’s pack, he reached out, heavy, twitching fingers fumbling over the fabric. White Honey. He had to get the damn potions. If the bottles were different, he could fucking eyeball it, but it was a moot bloody point if he couldn’t get to the bottled in the first place.

Thank Melitele that Geralt kept his reserves in his pack.

The clasp, the clasp - _there!_ The pack came open, and Jaskier scrambled through it, blinking desperately through the fog that had settled in his mind, trying to find the box of potion bottles that held Geralt’s potions.

His fingers closed around wooden edges.

The footsteps were getting closer.

Jaskier could take an educated guess as to why they were so slow. The not-a-drunkard wanted to ensure the strychnine solution had taken effect properly, rather than take him on when he could still get a hit in - the joke was on him. Jaskier flipped open the box, and of _course_ the wolves standardised their potion bottles differently, of course they did...

The footsteps felt so mockingly light.

Shit, shit, shit.

He pulled the potions up and dropped them, one by one - _Swallow, Tawny Owl, Blizzard, Golden Oriole, Swallow again, yet another Swallow, Cat, Cat, another Cat, Golden Oriole, White Honey_ \- White Honey. He was sure of it. The clear, yellow liquid - White Honey.

Uncorking the bottle, Jaskier downed it - and it definitely was White Honey, thank Melitele - and took a deep breath.

It’d take effect in a short while, but until then-

Until then, he had to be ready.

Concentrate.

Fight the fucking poison.

Like the first time he’d run the walls at Kaer Seren.

His entire body had been burning, screaming at him to _stop_ , but - he didn’t _have_ to.

So he’d just kept going. Pushed forwards.

It was almost the same thing.

(It really wasn’t.)

He just had to keep going.

Deep breaths.

Jaskier was better than this. No way would he lose against a toxin from a tree called the _poison nut_.

The footsteps drew closer.

Fuck it.

He pulled the two short swords - the two incriminating short swords he really should have gotten rid of, given that Ferrant de bloody Lettenhove had probably made note of them - out of the depths his own pack, fumbling a little less with the fastenings, this time.

He clambered to his feet

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

His head was clearing.

He brought his hands up in front of himself, fingers forming a familiar shape, palms dry enough to be comfortable holding onto this hilts of his swords, and then.

The not-a-drunkard _finally_ burst through the door and leapt at him, and Jaskier cast Heliotrope just before the moment of impact, the force of the man’s blow as he brought a dagger down on the shield wrenching his weapon from his hand.

Giving him no time to react, Jaskier spun round, left hand using his short sword to slash at the man’s now-unarmed hand, his right throwing Aard - only to meet resistance.

A shield.

Sorcerer.

He turned the motion of his right hand into a slash towards the man’s midriff, and, lightning-quick, his opponent pulled a rapier from his belt and parried, resisting the force of Jaskier’s blow.

His other hand, his other short sword, jabbed at the man’s exposed side, but failed to strike true, a hand snaking under his blade and grabbing his wrist in a vice-like grip.

Whoever the man was, he was _good_. He had Jaskier, an honest-to-god witcher - a poisoned witcher, but a witcher nonetheless - matched. That was fucking worrying.

“Julian,” he leered. “Julian, Julian... of Kovir, I am led to believe? Truth be told, I had no idea if our pet theory was remotely correct before you so kindly confirmed it for me. Playing bard, dogging the steps of a witcher so much stronger than you... How pitiful.”

“Why, my good fellow, do you happen to be a fan? Or did you and Lohere simply compare notes often?”

Surprise flickered across the man’s face - and, had his position not been so precarious, Jaskier would have outright laughed at the inanity of him having _this_ conversation with someone all dressed up like the village alcoholic.

“Lohere knew of your guise? Of course she did, she always was close with the other... But it matters not. I must say, I didn’t think you would be so eager to reveal yourself as a witcher, Julian.”

Jaskier grinned. His hands and the man’s both were trembling from the strain, but neither of them were giving any ground, locked so perfectly together, evenly matched as they were.

Unstoppable force and immovable object, indeed. He’d have to try and put that in a song - the sheer amount of _force_ that there could be behind a moment of utter stillness.

“The fact that I’m awake...” Jaskier grinned, doing his level best not to sound strained, “and fighting you, that would have given me away anyways, and... Well, you know. I like my advantages put to good use.”

And then he shot an Igni from his left hand.

Caught up in the stalemate as he was, the sorcerer had no time to defend against the attack, no time to throw up a shield or nullify Jaskier’s sign, and he let out a howl as the burst of flame that erupted from Jaskier’s hand caught him neatly across the cheek, letting go as he stumbled back in shock.

“Witcher bastard!”

“Half-right,” Jaskier said, ducking low and lunging, slashing at the man’s leg from the left and his midriff from the right. “My parents were married.”

The man recovered quickly, dodging Jaskier with a fluidity and grace so unbefitting of his current guise, and Jaskier continued to press his offence, the man almost mirroring him as they danced around each other, Jaskier’s swords slicing through the air, the rapier deflecting every strike with swift accuracy.

Pressing forward, Jaskier forced the sorcerer back. The White Honey had taken effect, the lethargy and the muscle spasms - that thank the gods, had not acted up during the fight - from the strychnine fading.

The sorcerer met every strike, metal clanging against metal, and Jaskier finally found the rhythm, the flow, of the fight. He could win this.

He just needed to outlast the sorcerer.

His griffin medallion brushed against his chest as the fabric of his doublet moved, the pocket brushing against his chest whenever his left arm crossed his chest.

The sorcerer wasn’t tiring. Fucking hell, the sorcerer wasn’t bloody tiring.

Where the _fuck_ was Geralt?

A thought - as Jaskier’s blades met the rapier once again, both swords pulling away from the parry almost as soon as their blades clashed into one another, striking low with his left and deflecting the rapier’s jab with his right - a thought crossed his mind.

The innkeep had known not to touch the strychnine-solution coated key.

There was every chance that the alderman was holding Geralt up, deliberately.

 _Fuck_.

This had been planned so much more meticulously than Jaskier had initially thought.

His leg snaked around the sorcerer’s and he _pulled_ , unbalancing but not tripping him, and then swiftly parrying a clumsy swipe.

“Enough!”

Eyes widening as he caught the meaning behind the sorcerer’s exclamation, Jaskier raised his hands to form Quen, but he was too slow - the sorcerer’s goddamn shockwave caught him before his fingers could twist into the shape of the same, and he felt his swords being wrenched from his hands as he was flung across the room, colliding with the opposite wall forcefully enough to leave cracks in the wood, before he slid gracelessly to the ground, landing in a heap.

A twinge in his abdomen told him that his stitches had been ripped, _again_. So much for witcher healing.

And, come to think of it, _fuck_ griffins strong enough to reopen a wound that had all but completely healed by the time it had met with the unfortunate creature.

Jaskier pulled himself to his feet, faster than he should, by all rights, have been able to, but not fast _enough_ , and the sorcerer was on top of him, restraining him, before he could completely recover.

Fuck, _fuck_.

The man pushed him down, roughly, and Jaskier fell, far too unbalanced to resist, but not enough that he didn’t try to roll out of the way was he fell - and that was a mistake.

And that... that was a fucking mistake.

The bitter tang of strychnine filled the air, and Jaskier barely registered what that meant before it was in his fucking _eyes_ , and that was just straight poison, nothing mixed in with it to help his skin absorb it, and there was no way the white honey was protecting him from that fucking much - who carried strychnine powder on them, in a fight? Who _did_ that?

Jaskier blinked furiously, and could barely even think to bolt before the sorcerer was pushing him down again, and all he could do was kick and bite and struggle, and gods, he’d rather be spilling his guts about his witchery past to Geralt and the rest of the world than-

Wait.

That was it.

Twisting and struggling against the sorcerer’s grip, Jaskier shifted his goal slightly to the left.

There was no way he was getting out of here on his own terms.

The poison was already slowing him down.

Geralt wasn’t coming.

But... He _would_ be.

Even if only after Jaskier was gone.

Writhing as much as he physically could - distract him, distract him, don’t let him realise - Jaskier twisted his right arm toward himself, as with his left, he pushed at the sorcerer’s face, and he was almost there, he almost had it-

His fingers reached, weakly, far too weakly, towards his chest.

The sorcerer pushed his left arm down.

Jaskier couldn’t resist him.

But he almost had it.

Almost.

 _There_.

The faint, rumbling breeze, accompanied by the faint smell of ozone, that signified a portal opening registered in his senses as his griffin medallion tumbled from his hand, quietly, to the floor.

And then, Jaskier surrendered, losing the fight well and truly, and strong, uncaring hands pulled him through the portal as consciousness deserted him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you like how i took the cliffhanger, fixed nothing, and made it worse.
> 
> Strychnine is a real thing, but it does not work the way i said it does lmao
> 
> We’re going into plot territory so more cliffhangers. I love cliffhangers.
> 
> A N Y H O W, DttDskier featured in [this amazing witcher!jaskier lineup](https://astraaeterna.tumblr.com/post/621108196284792832/inspired-by-stars-in-my-damn-eyes-to-throw) by [astraaeterna](https://astraaeterna.tumblr.com/) on tumblr!!
> 
> And the illustrious [hey-its-zezzy](https://hey-its-zezzy.tumblr.com/) drew [DttDskier](https://hey-its-zezzy.tumblr.com/post/625010995051511809/i-was-supposed-to-draw-fanart-for) also!!!!! I love you Zezzy 💚
> 
> By-the-by, how would you feel about the Reveal taking place in a Geralt POV oneshot where he basically figures it out himself trying to fix the whole plot thing whilst Jask is... indisposed? Because... I plan this. But I have no idea if you’d all like it as much as I would lmao
> 
> If I take 3 months to update again, you’re legally allowed to kill me.


	12. To Think, and to Know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There’s something of a difference between thinking - even if all logic stands behind your thoughts and props them up, all steadfast and sturdy - and _knowing_ something, without a shadow of a doubt. Of course, sometimes this difference is so minute and insignificant that it’s barely there at all. Other times... Other times, it’s simply striking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My undying thanks to [DancerInTheShadows](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DancerInTheShadows/pseuds/DancerInTheShadows), [screwthepurplegiraffe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/screwthepurplegiraffe/pseuds/screwthepurplegiraffe), and [brothebro](https://archiveofourown.org/users/brothebro/pseuds/brothebro) for betaing this chapter!!! I love you a lot
> 
> Also fuck putting italics back in in html, you’d think I’d learn to write them in as i go but nooooooo

The world was too much.

It was eerie, insofar as Kaer Seren had always been too quiet, too empty, the echoes of all the boys and men - the Griffin witchers that called the keep their home - and the wrongness of the hollow keep being too _loud_ for Julian made his stomach churn... That, or he still hadn’t recovered quite as much from the mutagens as he’d thought.

He screwed his eyes shut tighter, focusing on his too-loud breathing, the slow heartbeat that hammered in his chest far too audible for his liking. It was better, he supposed, to focus on what was meant to be there in the first place - and the sharp, whistling through-draughts that filled the halls, too empty to be maintained rigorously enough, it seemed, to prevent them.

The ambient sounds that he’d previously been deaf to were drowning him, almost, and he’d laugh about how pathetically obvious his and Coën’s supposed sneaking must have been if he wasn’t so laughably weak and helpless.

Helpless.

That was what he was.

The worried, almost frantic exchanges between Erland and Keldar had long since ceased, and the silence was either a good sign or a very, very bad one.

Kaer Seren was a bloody witcher keep.

Julian was under no illusion as to which eventuality was more likely.

He’d long moved past expecting any kind of reassurance, not daring to hope that Coën would be brought up to their room, not after what he’d heard. Theirs had been a large cohort - thirty boys, and the number made sense, given the great, empty keep, with not enough instructors to oversee more than one class at a time.

Thirty boys, and Julian had been there to see twenty-eight die (not _personally_ , the reek of bodily fluids and rot did get to you after a while, but he had known twenty-eight now-dead would-be witchers, which was the point) - it really had been a massive stroke of luck, in fact, that the two survivors of the first round had been himself and Coën.

It seemed that his luck had finally run out.

Julian curled in on himself even more, pressing his face into the blankets and breathing in, uncaring as to how each new sensation, each new texture and sound and smell, was like a dam being burst, crushing him under immense weight.

The blankets smelled of Coën, of the sweet _apple-honey-rust_ scent that Julian had never much been able to properly appreciate, before - he knew what Coën smelled like, how could he not, when they shared a living space the way they did? But he hadn’t been able, before, to isolate what it was.

There was a chance that Coën was alive and well, of course - but it was a chance that Julian wouldn’t be hedging his fucking bets on, not when he knew all too well the lethality of the trials - that, and the fact that he wasn’t _stupid_ , it was written in his goddamn _books_ that the Trials had always been the responsibility of mages, not the witchers themselves, and it didn’t take a fucking genius to put two and two together and figure that _that_ was why the death rate had been triple what it usually was in their cohort.

The salty smell of tears was seeping into the blankets, and his eyes were wet around the edges. Julian kept them screwed tightly shut.

Fuck Erland, and fuck Keldar, fuck this whole damn School.

Coën hadn’t - Coën hadn’t even done anything _wrong_. He’d been, in Julian’s opinion, the best trainee in the keep - insofar as that actually _meant_ anything with only two trainees in the keep as a rule.

But.

The point was.

The point was that he was probably dead.

Julian... Julian didn’t know what to do with that. He just... He didn’t. He didn’t know.

He was a witcher, sort of. He should have known how to fucking deal.

 _Should have_.

Didn’t.

And then, the door was pushed open.

The door was pushed open, and Julian froze, because the the scent that overwhelmed his senses now was one of rot and potions and fruits on a summer day, of honey and the orange rust that gathered on the old swords that Erland had them cleaning whenever they’d taken the piss a tad too much, it was _Coën_.

Coën was _alive_.

Julian would have laughed, if he could have - but it felt like there was something sharp and jagged stuck in his throat. Of course Coën was alive - he was Coën, he had to be, why had Julian ever doubted him in the first place? Perhaps his brain was still fucking... fucking potion-addled, or whatever. Sweet Melitele above.

“Alright there, Julian?” Erland asked, and there it was, the awkward, post-trials kindness in the man that Julian remembered from the first time round.

“You’re a fucking asshole,” he muttered in return, and Erland snorted, depositing a limp, pale Coën beside him with a gentleness that was wholly uncharacteristic of a witcher.

Julian’s relief, however, was short-lived, lasting approximately only up until he actually took a look at his friend.

Melitele, he was so much _paler_ than he should have been. The little scars on his cheeks, the remnants of a childhood illness, stood out even more starkly against his brown skin, so papery and fragile and _delicate_ , in all the ways that he shouldn’t have been. It was as if Coën had had the life drained out of him, all the warmth and colour sapped from his very being, leaving only a hollow shell behind.

Blood had dried on his eyelids, the edges lined by a ring of dull, brownish-red that someone hadn’t quite managed to wipe away properly, and his breathing was far too shallow, and he was _cold_ , so cold, Julian could tell even with the distance between them.

He dragged himself up, into a seated position, ignoring the protests of his still-weak body, to properly level a glare at Erland, ignoring the sudden dizziness that overwhelmed him.

“What’s wrong with him?”

Erland raised an eyebrow. “He’s just gone through the trials, Julian, some level of weakness, of injury, is to be expected.”

“You _know_ that’s not what I meant,” Julian hissed, taking care to keep his voice low. “I bloody _know_ you’re weak after the trials, but that’s- Coën’s past fucking _weak_. He’s barely fucking alive, and you’re gonna tell me what the fuck you _did to him!_ ”

It simply wasn’t _done_ , in Kaer Seren, to talk to Erland of Larvik so casually and disrespectfully, but Julian was _well_ past the point of caring.

“Julian.”

“If I weren’t a witcher- if I weren’t so _close_ to him, I’d have thought he was dead, and I heard you shouting, in the trials! So, what the _fuck_ did you do to him, you... you _barmy old codger?_ ”

“A temper tantrum, Julian? If you’ve recovered enough for your caterwauling, you’ve recovered quite enough to run the walls.”

“Answer my question!” Julian swallowed. “Please. Answer my question. He’s my best friend. Then I’ll run the walls for you. Sir. But I... I want to know. I have to.”

Erland sighed, the kind of long-suffering sigh that was primarily reserved for misbehaving children or rowdy baby witchers - one that, Julian knew, was difficult to elicit from the man, but one that he’d found being directed at him on more than one occasion.

“Sir-”

“It’s likely not what you’re thinking.”

Julian raised an eyebrow disbelievingly, and pointed a now-steady finger at his own eyes - because fuck, if he was going to get pulled up for wanton disrespect anyways... in for a copper, in for a crown, as they said, in all those crown-using countries.

“I’ll admit I made a mistake there, boy, but that wasn’t the case with Coën. You know the risks, of the body rejecting the mutagens, and that was what happened here - some kind of adverse reaction, but he pulled through.”

“ _Pulled through?_ ” Julian hissed. “He looks like he’s _dead_.”

“I assure you, he’s very much alive.”

“Alive’s not fucking- he’s not- you-”

“Julian,” Erland said, golden eyes narrowed. “Your arguing accomplishes nothing. Something that is done cannot be undone, most certainly not the Trials, but it can be fixed. You can continue to hiss and spit and cause both yourself and Coën discomfort, or you can be silent and help him.”

A thousand retorts sat on the tip of Julian’s tongue - _but you don’t know shit-all about the trials, we both know that it was the mages who did them_ being the main one - but he stayed quiet, contenting himself with simply glaring at the Griffin Grandmaster.

“What do I do then?” he asked, not without a note of petulance in his voice. “Sir.”

“Monitor his condition. Alert myself or Keldar if it worsens. Don’t make any unnecessary noise, for the obvious reasons. But, like all boys after the Trials, he should recover in time, unassisted.”

 _Like all the boys you didn’t fuck it up for, rather_.

“Yes, sir,” Julian said, his glare getting no less poisonous as he acquiesced, dipping his head politely enough for it to be mocking.

“You’re running the walls before dawn for a week, mind, Julian.”

“Understood.”

He hoped that his unrepentant glare was evident to his mentor, who simply checked Coën’s limp form once more, brief as can be, before leaving.

Julian flipped him off.

Coën’s shallow breaths filled the room, once Erland had left and there was nothing else louder left to focus on, and Julian found himself growing anxious again.

 _Recover unassisted_ , his arse. He knew what it was like to come out from after the Trial of the Dreams - he’d been disoriented, sure, and overwhelmed, and everything had felt, everything still felt, like Julian was trapped at the bottom of the ocean, being crushed under the weight of his surroundings - but.

But Coën just looked like death had paid him a visit during the Trial, had paid him a visit and intended on staying, and Julian was _afraid_.

Witchers didn’t get scared. Witchers weren’t supposed to feel bloody _anything_ , according to the general populace, because Julian had, in fact, heard at least some of the more popular rumours about witchers before his shitlord father had dumped him at Kaer Seren, but here he was.

Perhaps Erland and Keldar really had royally fucked up with the Trials, if Coën was dying and Julian was still feeling things.

They should hire a mage again.

“Coën?” Julian whispered.

The deep breathing of his best friend, his only friend, didn’t break its quiet, haggard rhythm enough to answer him.

Well.

Far be it from Julian to be the one to disturb the steady, shallow pattern of inhalation and exhalation that told him that Coën was at least still alive. Fuck it, he’d listen to the awful sound till the end of his days, as long as it didn’t _stop_.

* * *

Julian startled awake to the sound of a cough.

He’d become something of an incredibly light sleeper after the Trials, though whether that was a direct effect of the mutagens, or more closely linked to the fact that every sound had tripled in loudness, Julian didn’t know. The point was, he’d gotten used to stirring, cracking his slit-pupilled eyes open, at the slightest of noises, or movements in his periphery.

The odd thing this time was that he hadn’t meant to fall asleep to begin with, and it really was a sloppy mistake to make, falling asleep without one’s knowledge or any kind of intent to do so - that was something he should have gotten out of the habit of doing before the Trial of the Grasses, even, foolish as it was of a witcher to let his guard down like that - but what with the utter post-Trials _misery_ that he was currently in the midst of, he felt like once was a forgivable mistake.

And, he’d jumped at the sound of a cough, blinking swiftly back into the world of the living, so it was, by that metric, doubly forgivable. Erland couldn’t have him run the walls, or rearrange the library shelves, or whatever it was that he decided would be the best retribution for Julian’s sloppiness this week, for a misdeed he was unaware of, so it was fine.

But, he’d startled awake to a cough.

Ice started to pool in his stomach as he realised that the cough that had awoken him _hadn’t been his own_.

“Coën?”

Julian’s voice was a tad shriller than he’d meant it to come out, but still quiet, and he shifted his attention to look at his friend, lying on the blankets a good way away from where he usually slept relative to Julian, what with all the post-Trials sensitivity.

Coën had turned, of his own volition, onto his side, facing away from Julian.

“Coën?”

His breathing was deeper, now, and some of the greyish, deathly undertone had receded from his clammy, brown skin, as far as Julian could see, at least... The back of Coën’s neck, if nothing else, looked to be recovering at least a tad.

Getting to his feet as quietly as he could - which was fairly so, given all his training - Julian tiptoed closer to Coën, trying to gain a better angle of observation, his footfalls disconcertingly loud on the stone floor.

Coën’s breathing was still far too slow, far too even, for him to have awoken... Julian had to assume that he was still unconscious.

Brushing sweat-sticky strands of his hair from his eyes - and it really had gotten long, he needed to tie it back properly - he strained his neck, trying to peer closer without disturbing his friend, without getting close enough for his presence to be disruptive.

Coën was looking far better - like he was asleep, maybe a bit ill, but resting, no longer seeming to be on the brink of bloody _death_ , the way he had been a few... what was it, a few hours earlier?

Alright. He’d bite. Maybe Erland had been onto something with the whole _he should recover in time, unassisted_ thing. Given that the man had been around since the dawn of time (or the first witcher experiments, whatever, the difference was fundamentally the same), that wasn’t particularly surprising, but Erland had been known to make mistakes before.

Well.

Julian had known him to make one mistake.

The point was, there was a precedent for Erland of Larvik not being all-knowing, and Julian wasn’t just going to blindly go along with everything. The last time he’d done that, he’d ended up at a witcher keep.

It was an odd thought, actually, just how long he’d been at Kaer Seren. He was so much older, so much taller now, than when he’d arrived - and fuck, he was technically a witcher, now, wasn’t he? A proper one. Something inhuman, something other.

That was a fun musing.

When he _left_ Kaer Seren, again - provided that he was one of the witchers who did, in fact, leave Kaer Seren, because he was under no illusion that he couldn’t still manage to find a way to accidentally off himself, slip on the pendulums, for example, or end up facing off against something truly heinous in the mountains...

When he left Kaer Seren, it would be as something unwelcome amongst the rest of humanity, and wasn’t that charming? All this training, all this pain, and he’d come out of it stronger and ready to get swindled on monster contracts by aldermen who didn’t like him and spat on by any hapless villager he had a hand in aiding.

He knew the stories.

Sighing as quietly as he could, Julian leant against the stone wall of the room and slid down to the floor, pulling his knees up to his chest, eyeing Rook’s lute in the corner.

It was a bit sad, he supposed, that he’d never be able to learn to play it _properly_.

But monster contracts would probably make for brilliant songs, on the other hand. There was a thought that was far more fun to think about. The best songs were always the ones that told some kind of story, of battle and triumph - what was a successful contract, if not a triumph?

The post-Trial blues were getting to him... were those even a thing? Eh. It was all neither here nor there, really.

Coën coughed again, and Julian leapt to his feet on pure instinct, as his friend moved in his sleep again.

“Coën? Are you awake?”

Julian’s voice was as quiet as he could make it and Coën stirred and moved just a little bit, just enough to signal that Julian was being _too loud_.

It was the most wonderful thing that Julian had ever seen. Standing, stock-still, by the doorway, he simply pressed his hands to his mouth - ostensibly to stop any sound from escaping, but he had its doubts about its effectiveness - and just. Stood.

Coën was going to be okay.

* * *

The walls of Kaer Seren were... Julian had no idea how to put it.

Well, he did, but it was so unpoetic. None of the descriptors he could ascribe to the experience really felt right, it was a damn shame, and a waste of his literary talents, to boot.

The thing was, the walls were _really fucking loud_.

And sure, he’d run the walls before - often - hundreds of times since arriving at Kaer Seren. Nobody had actually fallen off, in his cohort, though two boys had come close - Tibor and Marton, he knew, despite the fact that he didn’t actually _care_ about the dead boys in his cohort, or their names, or their faces that were beginning to look every-younger in his mind’s eye.

Tibor - a grumpy kid, a year or so older than Julian had been, always hanging around with bloody Andras, of all people - had overshot on the corner, he remembered, he’d thought he had more space to make the turn than he actually did, and almost slipped off of the edge of the wall, only catching himself on the crenellated wall at the last moment.

Truth be told, Julian had no idea why Kaer Seren, a witcher keep, would need a crenellated wall in the first place, but it had been luck for Tibor that it did, otherwise he’d have died a bit earlier and a lot less painfully than he actually did.

Marton, on the other hand, had _undershot_ a corner, and ended up clinging to the opposite wall - somehow - and climbing back up again. It had been mildly impressive to watch.

But that wasn’t the point. The point was that now, unlike the last time he’d run them, before the Trial of the Dreams, the walls were almost unbearably loud now.

The whistling of the mountain wind was a sound that Julian would have described as _deafening_ , had he not been so acutely aware of the distant howling and calls of every single creature on the damn mountain and probably the next one over, not to mention the echoing of his footsteps on the wall itself.

He would rather have been rearranging an entire ten shelves of library books with old Keldar huffing over his shoulders, because this was utter hell.

Though, he supposed he _had_ been given fair warning, and he knew very well that it wasn’t done to yell at Erland of Larvik the way he had ( _“familiarity breeds contempt,”_ his father had once told him, a distinct sneer curving up the right side of his face, and how it burned to realise that, in this particular situation at least, he was _right_ ), even with the excuse of the Trials in his arsenal.

His breathing was still even as he made his third circuit, the sun barely peeking out from behind the horizon. Just focus on putting one foot in front of the other, don’t focus on the world, just run the bloody wall.

It was so much easier said than done, not to focus on the single loudest sound that Julian had ever heard in his life.

“Alright, boy!”

Julian skidded to a halt, peering down into the courtyard, where old Keldar had called for him.

“I think I’m supposed to keep going!” Julian yelled back.

“I’m the one who decides that.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s Erland!”

“Boy, are you sure that you want to be picking fights in your situation?”

Julian grinned to himself, and leant further over the inside edge of the wall, fixing old Keldar well and truly within his sights.

“I’m arguing the case in favour of my punishment, old man, so I’d say - yeah.”

“Get off the wall before I Aard you off.”

Julian laughed. “Would you actually do that? Actually?”

“Normally not until I’m sure you know how to land, but I’ll make an exception for you.”

“That’s so sweet of you!”

Keldar growled. “Get off the damn wall, Julian.”

“Say _please_.”

The stream of Igni that swept past Julian, to the left enough of his person that it was ineffective as anything but a warning, let him know that he was testing Keldar’s patience, and, with a huff, Julian started to clamber down from the wall.

No need to end up serving two punishments at the same time, after all.

He hit the ground with a soft thump, dropping the last length of the wall, and twirled round gracefully to face Keldar, quirking a brow, and shaking his head to get his hair out of his face.

“Your hair tie’s come loose.”

“I noticed,” he huffed, as he started after the older witcher, pulling the fabric tie from his hair completely to fix it. “So, what’ll it be today? More obscure and increasingly ridiculous signs? Alchemy? Quizzing us on the bestiary again?”

Keldar snorted. “Better have too many signs for too many purposes than not enough.”

“Is that experience talking?”

“This keep doesn’t have enough dirty halls to keep up with your insolence, boy.”

Julian quirked an eyebrow. He didn’t much understand Keldar’s proclivity for referring to the trainees as _boys_ \- unless they’d squirrelled a secret other cohort away in the underground levels, or somewhere, there were only two boys in the keep to begin with, and _Julian_ was not a particularly difficult name to remember... neither was _Coën_ , but he supposed the elderly did have their fair share of memory problems.

“Come on, Keldar, sir, tell me a story,” Julian needled. “Did you ever have to use George to escape a hardy monster?”

“Geo-”

“Yeah, the Sign of George! Inflicts temporary blindness on an enemy for as long as it’s held, you know the one.”

Julian smirked up at the old witcher, who glared back down at him.

“You mean, the Sign of-”

“George. I renamed it, it’s called George now.”

“Melitele save me,” Keldar murmured.

“So, did you ever make a harrowing escape thanks only to the sign of George? Because, let me tell you, Axii seems so much easier for... well, anything you might use my good friend George for.”

Julian fell into step beside his mentor - a _classic_ flaunting of his lack of etiquette, the Griffins had a thousand rules for propriety, and of course, the old rule of people boasting lower status being required to walk behind those above them unless otherwise invited figured the list.

Then again, if you asked him, he’d say that trying to properly enforce propriety with a grand total of two students was a failed endeavour to begin with. Keldar had, at least, stopped reacting too strongly to Julian’s casual shows of disrespect.

It was somewhat disappointing, but at least he was scrubbing less floors.

“We’re going over the bestiary alphabetically,” Keldar snapped.

Julian shrugged. The threat didn’t faze him - he’d always had a good memory, a good head for memorisation, it was why he could be so comfortable in half slacking off all the time without increasing the likelihood that his apathy would get him killed swiftly on the Path. Much.

Too, whilst it might have been incredibly petty of him, he did rather enjoy throwing Keldar for a loop. It was one of his favourite hobbies, alongside the lute he hadn’t touched since the night before the Trials.

“No stories, then?”

“Not with that attitude, boy.”

Julian hummed, before overtaking Keldar in speed completely, wandering down the halls at a far brisker pace than his mentor, but slowly enough that it was still _technically_ a walk. Mainly because jogging through the halls was an activity more befitting the younger boys, the pre-Dreams cohorts... if there had been any.

Gods, trying to keep a hierarchy amongst a grand total of two students was as difficult as it was stupid and pointless. They could bring back hierarchy when they had another cohort, it was simple.

That said, Julian _was_ making an effort not to run in the halls, if only because tiring oneself out at the literal crack of dawn in Kaer Seren was an abysmally stupid thing to do, and even he, a well-known curator and executor of abysmally stupid deeds and misdeeds, could recognise the reasons it would be unwise.

Or _reason_ , rather, in the singular. One tired mistake could mean the difference between life and death, given the nature of the things they were dealing with. Whilst they’d been lucky enough to only suffer one loss in their cohort before the Trials, before Julian had even arrived at the keep, it had still been an easily preventable casualty, and between that and the older witchers’ many, _many_ anecdotes, the fear of utter incompetence was well and truly instilled in Julian’s soul.

Not enough that he’d, say, conduct himself properly in his lessons, of course, but it was there.

Coën was waiting for him in the library, watching him through odd eyes that were no longer squinting.

And Julian did mean, odd.

“Coën, my dearest and beloved brother-in-arms,” Julian greeted, striding through their doors and making his way over to him, clambering over three inconveniently-situated desks in the process and depositing himself near enough to his friend that there was no mistaking his egregious violation of personal space - one that earned him a warm ruffle of the hair he’d _just got done tying back again_.

The older boy’s lips twitched up in a smile in response. “Julek.”

“Are you aware that your sclera are red, by the way?”

“Well, fuck me running, I hadn’t noticed!” Coën’s sarcasm was heavy enough that Julian couldn’t possibly miss it, but he ignored it most ardently anyways.

“I figured someone ought to tell you, then, so you’re welcome.”

“You’re a little shit.”

“It’s my finest and most redeeming quality.”

“Sadly enough for you, it does seem to be.”

“Hey!” Julian shoved him, earning his hair another mussing. “So are the eyes a temporary thing, or...”

Coën huffed, rubbing his cheek with one of the hand _not_ currently committing an honest-to-fucking-Melitele _crime_ against Julian’s hair.

“See, Julek, you’d _think_ so, but...”

“Unbelievable.”

“It’s not-”

“It’s un-fucking-believable, Coën. How in all the eleven _hells_ do you cock up that badly? What possible circumstances could-”

“Julek, calm _down_.”

Julian squirmed a little more at that, just to be contrarian. “No, I’m not done being angry on your behalf, Coën. They screwed up your eyes!”

“Julek. It’s only a... a cosmetic oddity.”

“Which makes it okay?” Julian hissed, suddenly a lot more acutely aware of what, exactly, the twenty-eight lost _others_ in their cohort were emblematic of.

Hint, it wasn’t Erland and Keldar’s amazing Trial-administration techniques.

“Julek, what’s done is _done_ ,” Coën growled back. “And I’d rather you not... _soapbox_ about me the way you’re trying to.”

The door creaked as it opened for Keldar to enter, but neither boy paid him any heed.

“I’m sorry for _giving a shit_ , then!”

“Julek. Julek, listen to me. It was a bad reaction, it could have happened to anyone. It’s water under the bridge, don’t... Don’t burn the bridge over this.”

“That’s a shit malaphor,” Julian sniped. “And you _can’t_ write it off as a coincidence, not when the three-in-ten survival rate wasn’t even three in bloody ten for us, it was less than _one_.”

“So now, you suddenly give a shit about our cohort? After all these years? Of course you do, now that you have something to preach about,” Coën snarled, perhaps a tad angrier, more venomously than he’d meant to, or perhaps Julian had finally worn his patience all the way down.

“I’m not-”

“You _are_ , you utter dick. Hypocrisy, thy name is Julek bloody Pankratz.”

“What, now I’m suddenly not allowed to be mad about the fact that people got hurt and _died_ ,” Julian threw his hands up in a gesture of poorly-exaggerated frustration, “because it looks disingenuous?”

Coën sighed, the wind leaving his sails. “Julek, I don’t mean... Damn it. You can be mad about the Trials, of course you can - I’m mad about them too, I’m mad that they’re so bloody lethal. But...”

“But what?” Julian growled, twisting the fabric of his sleeve in his fingers.

“You didn’t care about our cohort at the Grasses - and it’s... they’re- they were, they were people, too, they were kids. It feels... disrespectful of you to only bring them up as a tragic example when you’ve got a point that needs proving... Julek?”

Julian glared off into the distance, focusing on anything he could that wasn’t Coën.

Sure, their cohort had been full of assholes that had pushed him around in the handful of months that they’d all been around together at Kaer Seren, what with Julian having arrived the latest and being one of the scrawniest boys there and thus practically painting an advertisement for what an easy target he’d be on his head, but that didn’t mean he didn’t _care_ that they’d died. It was why he brought them up - because more of them had died than _should_ have.

Forget that - it was the fact that they’d all bloody died in the first place. 

Sure, maybe he hadn’t given all that much thought to it earlier, but... But, thinking he’d lost Coën to the Trials had been something of an eye-opener for him.

Was that selfish of him? Was that Coën’s point? That he only started to give a rat’s arse about the Trials and their death rate and their dangers when he’d personally stood to lose someone close to him, when Coën himself had gotten hurt rather than some dick who’d shoved him around from behind when he was paired up with one of his mates in fencing practice?

But surely, that was better than continuing not to care at all?

“Julek, hey, are you alright?”

“Can’t I care about our fucking cohort _now_?”

Coën sighed, and put an arm around his shoulders. “Julek, that’s not what I said.”

“Then what-”

“That it’s disingenuous to only bring them up when you need to prove a point and spend the rest of your time not really giving a shit - and I know what you said to Andras, my accusation’s not...”

“Yeah,” Julian said. “But I don’t- I’m not _happy_ they’re dead, I’m not...”

“I know, Julek, I know.” 

“It’s just... They knew that they didn’t know how to do the Trials properly, it literally says in our own bloody books in our own fucking library that it wasn’t their responsibility, and people got hurt, _you_ got hurt, Coën, your _eyes_...”

Coën chuckled at that, giving Julian’s shoulder a squeeze. “You know, you can stop rubbing it any time now.”

“ _Fuck_ ,” Julian hissed. “Sorry.”

“Eh, bygones. Anyways, what a wonderful teaching moment this was.”

“What did it teach?”

Shifting into a more comfortable, more relaxed position on the bench, Coën grinned at him. “That baby witchers are shit philosophers.”

“I’m an _excellent_ philosopher.”

“As good a philosopher as you are a lutist,” Coën smirked, nodding sagely, and Julian threw a book at him - a book that the older boy caught with effortless ease.

“You _brute_!”

It was at this point that Keldar finally decided to make his presence known, clearing his throat and breaking up the conversation, that had once again turned light-hearted.

“Boys, as interesting as your musings on the ethics of witcher Trials are,” Keldar said, in the most disinterested tone that Julian had ever heard come from anyone, “we are not here to engage in idle chatter.”

Julian huffed. “Could have fooled me.”

“I’d recommend that you save that sharp wit for the differences between a fleder and a garkain.”

“You _always_ ask the differences between fleders and garkains, but an interesting conversation is unique.”

Keldar snorted, crossing his arms, glaring down at Julian with narrowed golden eyes. “Haven’t we wasted enough time with your idle prattling, boy? I ask that you be able to list the difference between fleders and garkains in detail because the difference between knowing them and _not_ knowing them can be the difference between life and death - it often is.”

Julian opened his mouth to make an inopportune remark, and closed it again, before glancing at Coën.

“Julek, why do I get the feeling that you’re about to stick your foot in your mouth with the speed of an alp and the force of an enraged alghoul?”

His voice was quiet, barely audible, and Julian only shrugged at him, offering a half-hearted smirk.

“Right, it’s because that’s _exactly_ what you’re about to do, of course. Of course! Julek, I love you, but you’re a fucking idiot.”

Turning his attention back to Keldar, who was regarding him with the kind of wariness that he reserved only for Julian’s specific, usual brand of nonsense and time-wasting, he cleared his throat and spoke.

“Sir?”

“Out with it.”

“Why didn’t you get a mage to perform the Trials?”

Keldar stiffened.

“Only,” Julian continued, because he wanted answers and wasn’t above making any conversation he took part in spectacularly uncomfortable, “what with us only having one cohort, it wasn’t that big of a recruitment pitch.”

“And an inexperienced mage would do better than witchers who have been aiding in the process for centuries?” Keldar scoffed.

“A mage from another school,” Julian clarified, glaring. “I know for a _fact_ that Kaer Seren and Kaer Morhen are on good terms with each other, you could have just-”

“No.”

Keldar’s tone was sure and firm, and more final than anything Julian had ever heard in his life before, and Coën furrowed his brow in the way that he did when he was trying to piece together a puzzle, his mouth pulling up at the right corner as his face scrunched up in concentration.

He’d caught something Julian had, himself, missed.

Naturally, then, he pressed on. “Why not?”

“Imagine, if you will, a tank,” Keldar said, and that struck Julian as so incredibly _wrong_ , because old Keldar was a man of facts and solid knowledge, with little appreciation for metaphor or hyperbole. “Imagine a tank, a tank that contains a great many aquatic specimens of various, peaceful creatures, that all thrive within it.”

Julian bit back a snide remark about the quality of metaphor, the fact that Keldar was mapping the Kaer Seren witchers onto a literal bucket of beasts, that he knew would only curtail the explanation.

“The tank, however, has a problem with disease. At first, the people that owned it decided to remove and treat the diseased fish themselves, individually - they at least managed to do this efficiently and reasonably amongst themselves. But then, at one point, one of those in charge of the tank decides that perhaps bloodletting the specimens would help. And thus, leeches were added to the tank”

If the scorn in Keldar’s voice hadn’t been so evident, then the sentiment would have gotten across either way - assumptions were as far from a science as it got, but having mages-who-helped-in-the-trials demoted to leeches in the tank metaphor, and the fool who introduced them be some kind of idiot that believed in _bloodletting fish_ , spoke clearly enough of contempt.

That was a pretty glaring clue, in Julian’s mind, as to what, exactly, had happened.

“But then the leeches don’t stop at draining the diseased specimens, they instead suck them all dry as leeches are wont to, and they begin to do harm. They overtake the tank, they disrupt the lives of the specimens in their insatiable desire to feast, and this keeps going on and on, the specimens and observers both powerless against the damn infestation - have you ever tried to pry leeches from a tank of specimens?”

“Sorry to interrupt-” a glare- “but what does that correlate to in real life?”

Keldar sighed. “They - the mages, that is, established themselves as superior, commandeered our resources, and thought themselves the authority on the school, did their damndest to get us to obey their orders and fall at their heels like dogs. We didn’t want to let them walk all over us, and they didn’t like that, and conflict arose.”

Julian pointedly didn’t mention how this mapped onto the metaphor somewhat confusingly. He could be tactful at times.

“And so, we fought, the Griffins and the mages, and you can see the aftermath.” A scoff, a laugh with no humour in it. “We were decimated. Of the senior witchers, those who taught at Kaer Seren, only Erland and myself survived. The cohorts we had in training there - that, now that was cruel. We had but a handful of trainees survive, and only from amongst the oldest. They hunted us down on the path for a few years after the fact. And the catalyst for this?”

The old witcher drew a sharp breath, anger evident in his face.

Julian just watched him.

“We wouldn’t hand over access to our _damn_ library - it was, and still is, rather cleverly warded, and that show of apparent disrespect, on _our part_ , they said, was apparently too much for Kaer Seren’s _leeches_. And so what we wouldn’t give, they tried to force from us. The wards around the library held, at least - we didn’t let the power-hungry tyrants in for a reason.”

“Shit,” Coën said, softly, likely without meaning to.

“Indeed. And given that it took the nigh-destruction of our school to get rid of the damn mages, we are in no hurry to let them back in. Would you put the leeches back in the tank, boy?”

Julian blinked and shook his head.

“How long ago did this happen?” Coën croaked.

And - gods, Julian knew _something_ bad had happened to leave Kaer Seren such a hollow shell, but this... Who slaughtered _children_ in response to being denied?

“Around two decades, give or take,” Keldar said. “But we have our texts, our knowledge, our alchemical formulae. We can rebuild - the more witchers we put out on the Path, the more we can call back to help put our numbers back up. I won’t bore you with the details - that’s between Erland and myself. Many a late night was spent in discussion - it’s enough to go through it once. And, if I find this digression was due to your lack of ability to distinguish between fleders and garkains, then I remind you that the floors are in need of mopping by foolish trainees.”

Julian saluted him smartly, and kept his mouth shut as Keldar busied himself with revisiting material, devising questions out loud.

He shared a look with Coën, an indescribable emotion passing between them - something slightly to the left of sorrow but not exactly mourning.

Keldar’s revelation hung heavy in the air, a kind of belated realisation of something that had, on the subconscious level at least, been know, but the true meaning of which was only now beginning to set in - the Griffin School had been reduced from an entire keep full of men to this - to two impossibly old witchers and two trainees how couldn’t possibly understand what they had lived.

Or something.

But there was knowing something logically, and there was _knowing_ it, and Julian couldn’t help but wonder how many of the abundant notes and amendments in the margins of the books they studied were in the hands of a witcher that had died over such a petty squabble.

And god, was it petty - denying entry to Kaer Seren’s library? When, exactly, had the mages offered their notes to the Griffins? He was fairly certain that they’d rather gut themselves with silver than let Erland step one foot in Aretuza or Ban fucking Ard.

Either way, Julian had little desire left to joke around with the newfound knowledge that countless men had given their lives to protect the room he now sat in.

It wouldn’t do to dwell on it, but dwell on it he would. Gods, this whole thing was a shit-show from start to finish. And, what was more, it had been paid for in lives - some innocent, some less so, but a person was a person, a life was a life.

There were so many better things to die for.

The gods only knew what Julian would die for, but he only hoped it would be better than... this.

In the end, wasn’t that all he could do? Look back at the past, the mistakes and injustices that had preceded him, acknowledge that, even if he did anything perfectly, he could find himself on the wrong side of a sword by sheer circumstance, and hope?

It was depressing.

Fitting, he supposed, for a witcher. They weren’t really made for great things, though they definitely were made for some purpose.

An inglorious one, at that - had those who’d died at Kaer Seren done better than those who had ended up in a no-name ditch, trying to kill some farmer’s beast without enough supplies for a quarter of the coin it was worth?

It wasn’t worth the price, the effort, the training, not to Julian’s mind.

But that didn’t much matter to anyone.

So he just sat, focusing on Coën’s slow, steady heartbeat beside him, silent.

Considering, within himself, the state of things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s really funny to me that some people thought i was actually gonna kill Coën because i didn’t even _consider_ hurting him in such a way until concern was expressed in the comments and [brothebro](https://archiveofourown.org/users/brothebro/pseuds/brothebro) had to talk me out of a Coën mcd so.... thank you, Bro, for your service and your good decisions in regards to how badly I should hurt my boi.
> 
> I threw the canon Griffin keep destruction mess out of the window and reworked some of the bones... I have a license, I Do What I Want
> 
> Also having the reveal take place outside of the main story is kinda wack so I’m pushing what would have been ch13 back to make the next one Geralt’s fucking interlude. It’s basically what the oneshot would have been but frankensteined into this fic.
> 
> also i finally ended on Not a Cliffhanger are you proud of me

**Author's Note:**

> This is my fourth fic, and I resent this due to the fact that I’m now losing the excuse of ‘oh well I’m a rookie, that’s why my fic is not the best’, but please forgive me for my terrible writing skills regardless  
> //oh hey, past me, this is no longer true, i'm past 19 works and have well and truly lost my "rookie" excuse. Can you believe DttD was my first witcher fic? Wild.
> 
> Also, my writing style?? It is indeed absolutely how I speak in my actual, real life, to other human people. In case I wasn’t insufferable enough already :P
> 
> I’m @stars-in-my-damn-eyes on tumblr, come yell at me about the Witcher :D
> 
> Please give me comments, I thrive on feedback!!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [something ends, something begins](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24347692) by [vipersong](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vipersong/pseuds/vipersong)




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